Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/eventsatnationalOOtownrich 


A  R  y 


£Lcaufo^ 


EVENTS  AT  THE 


MTIOJiAL  CAPITAL 


AND      T  H,B 


CAMPAIGN  or  1876. 


cojrplete  hiptort  op  the  foundation  and  growth  of  our  governing  citt,  ▲ 

Description  of  the    Tublic  Buildings  and  Manner  op  Living  there,  >a 

Searching  Exposure  op  thk  various  Jobs  and  Scandals  which  have 

EXCITED  Public  Indignation,    full    Biographiks  op  Hayes, 

Wheeler.  Tilden,  and   Hendricks,  besides 

various  Political  Stat'istics. 


By  GEO.  ALFRED   TOWNSENJ),  and  others. 


HARTFORD,  COOT.: 
J  AS.    BETTS    &    CO. 

S.  M.  BETTS  &  CO  ,  Chicago;    J.  H.  CHAMBERS  &  CO.,  St.  LotJlfls 
F.    DEWING    &      CO.,     San  Francisco,  Cal. 
HABER  BROS.,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

1876. 


f 


Entered  accoiding  to  Act  of  Con<rres'=,  in  the  rear  1876. 

By  JAMES  BETTS  &  CO., 
In  the  Office  of  tlie  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington, 

7  ^  3  4y 


CASE,  LOCKWOOD  &  BUAIJ^-ARD,  VTii.  H.  LOCKWOOD, 

PRINTERS  AND  BINDERS,  ELECTROTYPEE, 

HARTFORD,    CONN.  HARTFORD,  CONN. 


ILLUSTEATIONS. 

FULL  PAGE. 


No. 
1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 


Page. 

Hayes,  Wheeler,  Tilden,  Hendricks,    -       -       -  Frontispiece. 

Capitol  Building, Opposite   46 

JMarble  Hall  (Capitol  Building),    -        -        -        -  "50 

Ladies'  Reception  Eoom, "53 

House  of  Representatives, "54 

Senate  Chamber,    --.---.-  "         56 

Lobby  of  Senate,    -------  "58 

Dome  (Inside  Section), "93 

Dome  and  Spiral  Staircase  in  Conservatory,  -  "         98 

View  of  Conservatory  No.  1,       -        -        -        -  '   "       100 

"        "                "              No.  2,        -        -        -        -  "102 

Cabinet  Chamber       (White  House),     -       -       -  "136 

Blue  Room                         "          "           -       .       -  "       138 

East  Room                         u         u           ...  «       140 
Green  Room                       ««..-<'       142 

Red  Room                            u          u           ...  «       144 

View  in  Conservatory    «          «           _        -        .  "       146 

Congressional  Library  (Central  Room),        -        -  "       205 

State,  War  and  Navy  Departments  (New  Building),  "       291 


iv  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Page. 

Major  L'Enfant's  Resting  Place— The  Digges  Farm,     -        -  35 

Hallet's  Plan  op  the  Capitol, 46 

Tayloe  Mansion, 85 

The  Capitol  as  seen  from  IPennsylvania  Avenue,  -        -       -  93 

Statue  of  Liberty, 94 

Jno.  Welcker, 116 

Washington's  White  House  as  it  was  in  Philadelphia,  1790,    -  134 

The  White  House, 139 

Interior  East  Room,     ---- 141 

Mount  Vernon, 168 

Ford's  Theatre,    ---- 201 

Soldiers'  Home,     ----------  207 

Smithsonian  Institute, 209 

The  Great  Falls  of  the  Potomac, 283 

National  Observatory,  on  Observatory  Hill,         _        -        .  288 

Treasury  Building,       ---------  290 

United  States  Post-Office, -        -291 

Patent  Office — South  Front,     - 292 

Willard's  Hotel, 297 

The  Ebbitt  House, 298 

Marcia  Burns— Van  Ness, 315 

Van  Ness  Mansion,  and  Davy  Burns'  Cottage,        -        -        -  316 

Van  Ness  Mausoleum, 319 

Mount  Airy, 325 

Jefferson's  Home — Monticello, 338 

Washington  Monument,       -       - -  352 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CKAPTER  L 

Introductory. 

The  Credit  Mobilier  investigation  of  1873 — Excitement  in  tlie  connttT 
over  its  developments — A  review  of  the  causes  of  our  political  demor- 
alization— Eminent  men  affected  by  the  scandal — Two  Vice-Presi 
dents  and  the  heads  of  the  important  committees  scathed — The  back 
pay  plunder — Bow  to  approach  tlie  remedy.     ••••#••»     15 

CHAPTER  n. 

How  Washington  City  came  to  bb. 
Was  it  a  job  or  a  compromise  ? — Had  Gen.  Washington  interested 
motives  in  locating  it  ? — The  land  owners  and  their  wrangles — Con- 
gress driven  out  of  Philadelphia — The  manner  of  buying  the  ground 
— Capital  moving — Reminiscences  of  the  site — Character  of  the  early 
population — Washington  rides  out  with  the  commissioners — His  mor- 
tifications— What  the  town  has  cost  the  Government — Condition  of 
civilization  when  the  city  was  founded •Id 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Job  of  Planning  the  Federal  City. 
Major  L  'Enfant,  the  landscape  gardener — Jefferson's  influence  in  lihe 
plan  of  the  city — L  'Enfant  discharged — His  lonely  life  and  death — 
Vindication  of  his  extravagance— His  quarrel  with  Daniel  Carroll — 
Sketch  of  Andrew  Ellioott,  L  'Enfant's  successor — Benjamin  Banne- 
ker,  the  negro  surveyor — Washington's  prediction  concerning  his 
oamesakecity > 31 


• 


Vi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Architects  op  the  Capitol  ajto  their  feuds. 
Stephen  S.  Hallet,  the  French  architect— His  claim  to  have  won  the 
premium  for  the  great  structure — An  examination  of  his  drawings — 
Want  of  information  about  him — Dr.  William  Thornton  the  success- 
ful architect — His  life  and  versatility — Hallet  discharged  by  the 
commissioners — Employment  of  George  Hadfield — His  public  con- 
structions— His  criticism  upon  Thornton's  plan — Discharged — Em- 
ployment of  James  Hoban — Hoban's  career  in  America— He  builds 
the  White  House — He  is  succeeded  by  Latrobe — Account  of  that 
fine  architect — He  builds  the  wings — Quarrels  with  the  commission- 
ers— Is  succeeded  by  Chas.  Bulfinch  of  Boston — Romantic  story  of 
Bulfinch — He  builds  the  center,  rotunda,  and  library — Is  succeeded 
by  Eobt.  Mills — Mills  builds  the  old  Treasury,  Patent-Office,  and 
Post-office — Is  discharged — Tlie  stone  quarries  at  Seneca  and  Acquia 
Creeks — Tlie  new  wings  designed — Life  of  Thomas  U.  Walter,  the 
great  classical  architect — Cost  of  materials — Expense  of  the  Capitol 
— B-enown  of  the  great  building — Its  associations.  ..»•••,    40 

CHAPTER  T. 

The  Lobby  and  its  Gentry. 

Definition  of  lobbyist — Jefferson  makes  the  architect  screen  the  lobby 
— Fine  abilities  of  some  lobbyists — Lobbyists  relations  with  news- 
paper men — The  poker-playing  lobbyist — Anecdote — The  cotton- 
bug  scheme  to  refund  the  cotton  tax — Its  failure — Extravagant 
scheme — Adolph  butro  and  his  tunnel — He  is  opposed  by  the  Bank 
of  California — A  daring  and  expensive  experiment — The  Com- 
stock  lode — Horace  Greeley  endorses  it — The  irrigating  lobby — 
The  French  spoliation  claims — Sketch  of  their  agent — The  Missis- 
sippi levees — Scheme  to  rebuild  them  at  the  national  expense.     .    .59 

CHAPTER  YI. 

A  RUNNING  History  of  Government  Scandals. 
Corruption  coeval  with  the  Government — The  first  breach  of  decorum 
in  1798 — Matthew  Lyon  spits  in  Boger  Griswold's  face — Question 
of  his  expulsion — Griswold  canes  Lyon  in  his  seat — Misfortunes 
of  Lyon — He  is  sent  to  prison  for  violating  the  sedition  law — 
lleelected  by  his  constituency — Thomas  Pinckney  refused  permis- 
sion to  take  presents  from  foreign  rulers — Burning  of  the  Treasury 


CONTENTS.  Vii 

building — The  great  Limantour  claim — Frauds  under  Spanish, 
Mexican,  and  British  titles — A  New  Hampshire  judge  impeached 
for  drunkenness,  profanity,  and  insanity,  in  1804 — Impeachment 
of  Judge  Chase — The  Vice-President  presides  under  indictment  for 
murder — Chase  acquitted — Meanness  of  John  Randolph — The  elder 
Dallas  charged  with  bribery — Secret  service  money  to  bribe  France 
— Judge  Sebastian  charged  with  treason— ^Commander-in-chief  Jas. 
Wilkinson  ditto — Senator  John  Smith  and  Burr's  treason — Edward 
Livingston's  Batture  claim — Albert  Gallatin  and  the  Whisky  In- 
surrection— Pennsylvania  defies  the  Government  and  confiscates 
prizes — A  day  ordained  for  private  bills — Wrangle  over  the  United 
States  Bank — The  case  of  John  Henry — Clay  and  Calhoun  con- 
spire against  the  newspaper  writers — Settlement  of  the  Yazoo 
claims — Second  National  Bank — It  is  abetted  by  Dallas  and  Cal- 
houn— The  General  Government  makes  the  first  large  appropriations 
for  roads  and  public  buildings  in  1815 — Origin  of  the  Preemption 
rights — Scandal  over  the  Second  National  Bank — Amos  Kendall 
tells  the  story — Clerks  taking  advantage  of  their  positions — Abel  R. 
Corbin — George  Cowlam 71 

CHAPTER  VII.    • 

Society  and  the  City  from  the  Madisonian  to  the  Emancipation 

Period. 

Origin  of  the  custom — Reminiscences  of  Mrs.  Ogle  Tayloe — Mrs.  Madi- 
son institutes  the  habit — Her  influence  on  Washington  society — Per- 
sonal description — Madison  inhabits  the  Tayloe  mansion — The  foreign 
ministers — Sketch  of  the  marine  band— The  brilliant  Winter  of  1825 — 
Lafayette  in  the  city — A  general  resume  of  fine  society — Great  feed — 
Lafayette  meets  an  old  friend — Toast  making — John  Quincy  Adams 
builds  a  house — A  President's  son-in-law — Gen.  Jackson's  receptions 
— Society  in  Fillmore's  times — Harriet  Lane— New  Year's  customs  ex- 
tend to  private  houses — Growth  of  Washington  City — The  appro- 
priations of  1873 — The  board  of  public  works — Rejuvenated  Wash- 

•     ingtoninl873 — Extraordinary  improvements 84 

CHAPTER  YIII. 

The  Romance  of  the  Capitol  Building. 
The  old  edifice — How  the  dome  was  constructed — Its  dimensions  and 
cost — The  great  statue  surmounting  the  dome — Splendid  ceremony 
when  it  was  raised— The  forts  salute  it— Weight  of  the  structure- 
How  the  patterns  were  prepared — The  old  dome — Pressure — Interior 
of  the  dome — Trumbull's  paintings— The  relievoes— Ascent  of  the 


I    ^JJJ  CONTENTS. 

dome — Brumidi — The  crypt — Associations  of  the  rotunda— Future 
of  the  Capitol — The  Ughting  apparatus — Beautiful  phenomenon — 
Other  structures  compared  with  our's — Cost  of  some  of  the  items— 
A  talk  with  the  dome  builders — How  the  war  affected  the  contractor 
— What  he  has  to  say — How  a  penurious  Congress  agreed  to  have 
a  new  dome — Pretty  romance.       . 93 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Some  of  the  Organic  Evils  of  our  Congressional  System. 
Broken  promises  come  home  to  roost — The  Congressman  seducing  his 
constituent  to  be  an  office-getter — An  illustration — How  Indian  trea- 
ties are  put  through — The  Indian  title  to  lands — Value  of  acquaint- 
anceship in  Washington — Jobbers  taking  advantage  of  the  machinery 
of  Government — The  Commercial  Bepublic — Mr.  Shannon  on  dem- 
agoguery — How  rich  men  buy  legislation  to  save  time — The  manual 
of  parliamentary  rule — Neglect  of  public  business — The  boy  Speaker 
— Willie  Todd — Tliaddy  Morris — The  Senate  Chamber — Cussedness 
in  the  Senate — Personal  resentment  in  legislation 105 

CHAPTER  X. 

Style,  Extravagance,  and  Matrimony  at  the  Seat  op  Govern- 
ment. 

Cost  of  living  in  Washington — Great  profligacy  in  feeding — Jno.  Welck- 
er  and  his  celebrated  restaurant — The  Washington  markets — Early 
good  times  in  the  history  of  the  city — Beale's,  Wetherill's,  Crutchet's, 
Gautier  s — Welcker's  great  dining  room — Price  of  a  Congressional 
dinner — Twenty  dollars  a  plate — His  chief  cook — ^Instances  of  ex- 
travagant meals  at  Washington — Spanish  mackerel — Brook  trout — 
Mountain  mutton — Canvas  backs — Potomac  snipe — Potomac  shad — 
Savannah  shad — Black  bass — Capon  au  sauce  Goddard — Truffles — • 
Hotel  life  at  Washington  and  New  York — Extravagance  of  politi- 
cians— Prices  at  the  Arlington  Hotel — The  prince's  ball — The  scene — 
Dresses  of  the  host  and  guest — Members  of  the  legation — Romance  of 
the  Gerolt  family — The  Baron's  daughter  goes  to  a  convent — A  blast-  , 

ed  matrimonial  project — The  diplomatic  body — Marriages  between  ' 

American  girls  and  foreign  ministers — The  prose  side  of  the  diplo- 
matic corps — Bridal  couples  at  Washington — The  diary  of  a  bride 
who  came  to  see  the  impeachment  trial — A  laughable  description.         116 


CONTENTS.  IX 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Domestic  History  of  the  White  House. 

The  Presidents  and  their  wives  in  order — Mrs.  Adams's  letters — She 
makes  the  first  description  of  the  interior-of  the  White  House— Jeffer- 
son runs  in  debt  as  President — Borrows  money  from  the  Richmond 
banks — Mrs.  Madison  again— Monroe  and  the  era  of  good  feehng — 
Description  of  the  apartments  — State  dinners — The  wall  paper  and 
ornaments — Reminiscences  of  the  house — John  Quincy  Adams  in- 
troduces abilliardtable— Clothes  to  dry  in  the  East  Room — Jas.  Par- 
ton  on  the  White  House — Portrait  painters  there — Mrs.  Eaton  — 
Jackson's  manners — Matty  Van  Buren— Jackson  abuses  Congress — 
Jackson's  two  forks — Deaths  in  the  AVhite  House — John  Tyler's 
bride — Harriet  Lane • 134 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Some  of  the  Bureaux  of  our  Government  visited. 
The  Coast  Survey — Its  origin  and  development — What  it  has  to  do — 
The  Supreme  Com't  and  the  fees  of  the  most  eminent  lawyers  there — 
The  chief  door-keeper  of  Congress — A  walk  through  the  document 
room — The  printing  of  maps — A  mooted  case — Joe  Wilson — A  reve- 
nue detective — The  whisky  frauds — How  they  were  accomplished — 
Talk  with  a  Mr.  Martin — Stationery  contractors  at  Washington — 
How  Judge  Foote  was  attacked  by  the  envelope-makers — Secrets  of 
the  government  printing  office — Secrets  of  the  Patent  Office — Munn 
&  Co. — Crowding  of  the  government  buildings 148 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

A  Picture  of  Mt.  Vernon  in  1789. 
The  estate  of  Washington  as  it  was  in  his  lifetime — He  is  advised  of 
his  selection  as  President — His  acceptance — David  Humphreys  and 
his  household — Home  comforts  at  that  period — The  first  President's 
character — His  land  and  social  life — A  study  for  politicians  and 
Presidents  now-a-days — Financial  struggles — Washington's  love  of 
the  Potomac  country — Apprehensions  of  its  declining  condition— Its 
fisheries — His  husbandry — His  thoughts  on  emancipation — Shipping 
facilities — Washington,  no  ladies'  man — His  political  cast  and  rank 
— Reminiscences  of  Mt.  Vernon — Current  estimates  of  Washington 
— Last  visit  to  his  mother— Affecting  interview— Departs  for  tlie 
Capital  in  New  York 1^8 


\  X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Curiosities  of  the  Great  Bureaux  of  the  Government. 

The  annual  appropriation  bills — What  it  costs  to  be  governed — Quaint 

features  of  the  executive  departments — The  New  York  custom  house 

— Figures  about  it — The  marines  and  their  old  barrack  at  Washing- 

)n — The  agricultural  department — The  Smithsonian  Institute — The 

etective  of  the  Treasury — The  Librarian  of  Congress — Peter  Force 

-The  bug  microscopist — Novel  Judge- Advocate — Mint  and  coinage 

iws — Army  and  Navy  Medical  Museum — Quaint  people  in  the  Treas- 

ry 187 

CHAPTER  XY. 

My  pursuit  of  Credit  Mobilier. 
I  receive  orders  to  find  what  the  scandal  amounts  to — Start  for  Phila- 
delphia— Rummage  amongst  the  court  records — Trace  up  the  Credit 
Mobilier  Company  to  the  fiscal  agency — See  the  commissioner  to  take 
testimony — Telegraph  to  the  plaintiff* — Visit  New  York — Interview 
Col.  Henry  S.  McComb — He  gives  at  full  length  the  story  of  his  suit.     211 

CHAPTER  XYI. 

Credit  Mobilier  brought  to  bay. 
The  Credit  Mobilier  examination — Inside  the  committee  room — Judge 
Poland's  appearance — The  prosecuting  witness,  McComb — Ames 
and  Alley — The  culpable  Congressmen — Their  embarrassitient  and 
distress — Examination  of  each  case — Finding  of  the  committee — 
Brooks  and  Ames  designated  for  expulsion — Both  die  in  a  few  weeks 
— The  United  States  bring  suit  against  theCr6dit  Mobilier.     .    .       234 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
CniEFLY  Antiquarian  and  Descriptive. 
Opening  of  the  public  offices  in  Washington,  1800 — Original  jurisdic- 
tion— The  first  excitement  in  the  Capital — The  namers  of  the  city — 
Early  buyers  of  lots — Peculations — CarroUsburg — A  defense  of  the 
original  proprietors — Origin  of  the  name  of  Georgetown — Weld's 
description  of  the  city  in  1 796 — Tobias  Leer's  book — Doctor  Ward- 
en's account  of  the  City  in  1810 — Sutcliff^'s  visit — Francis  Asbury's 
account — Tom  Moore's  visit  in  1804,  and  what  he  wrote  in  poetry — 
The  bad  roads  of  Maryland — Contemporaneous  cities — Wharves — 
Failures  of  the  early  house-builders — Opening  of  turnpike  roads — 


CONTENTS.  XI 

Wolcott's  sketch  of  the  Washingtonians-Janson's  sketch— J.  Davis's 
sketch — Excerpts  from  the  commissioners'  books — Retrocession  in 
1803— Pumps— Tlie  aqueduct — Growth  of  population— Present  taxes 
—Help  from  the  Presidents — Georgetown  College— Early  Alexandria 
— Washington  Canal,  now  and  then— History  of  the  Navy  Yard — 
The  old  City  Hall— The  longitude  and  the  Observatory— Blodget's 
great  hotel — Sketch  of  the  Treasury  buildings,  old  and  new — Archi- 
tects of  the  departments — Rise  of  the  departments  and  their  organi- 
zation— Conception  of  the  Patent-Office — The  churches  of  the  city 
■ —  Schools  —  Penitentiary — Banks — Chesapeake  canal — Freshets — 
Hotels — Braddock's  rock — Wilkinson's  proposition  to  stand  siege — 
Capture  by  the  British — Building  of  the  forts  in  the  rebellion — De- 
scription of  the  system — Geology  of  Washington — Effort  to  move 
the  Capital  in  1870 — The  movement  rebuked — Revival  of  the  city — 
The  board  of  public  works 266 

CHAPTER  XYIII. 

A  Record  of  Historical  Events  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
From  1861  to  1876 308 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Social  Sketches  of  the  Old  and  New  in  Washington. 
The  Burns  family  and  its  history — Gen.  Van  Ness  and  the  mausoleum 
— Disinterment  of  the  old  Remus — Story  of  sister  Gertrude — The 
Carroll  estate — Original  squatters  on  the  Capital  site — Old  Alexan- 
dria— The  Calvert's  place  at  Mt.  Airy — Thos.  Law  and  John  Tayloe 
— Notley  hall  and  Marshall  hall — Arlington  house  and  the  Custis 
family — Brentwood— The  CarroUs — Georgetown  places — Sketches  of 
the  commissioners — Analostan  island — Amos  Kendall's  life  and  tomb 
— A  visit  to  Jefferson's  place  at  Monticello — Great  Falls  and  Jackson, 
the  blockade  runner — 'i  he  Loudon  Valley — Georgetown  Cemetery — 
Approach  to  Washington  City  from  the  North — Topography — Up  in 
the  forts — The  Washington  Monument 313 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Jobbery  Coeval  with  Government. 

An  inquiry  as  to  whether  we  are  more  corrupt  than  in  the  early  days 

of  the  Government — The  Yazoo  land  swindles — Assumption  of  state 

debts — Trading  off  the  Capitol  for  a  job — Evils  of  the  national  bank 

—Investigation— Hamilton   attacked— The  Randall  and  Whitney 


Xii  CONTENTS. 

case  of  1795 — Baldwin  and  Frelinghuysen — Expulsion  of  Blount — 
Licentiousneps  proved  against  Alexander  Hamilton — His  confession— 
The  first  present-taker — The  first  breach  of  decorum — Incendiarism 
in  1800 — A  New  Hampshire  judge  removed  in  1804 — Judge  Chase's 
trial — The  senior  Dallas — Secret  service  money — Spanish  pensioners 
— The  whisky  insurrectionists — Case  of  the  sloop,  Active — Dismal  end 
of  the  second  U.  S.  bank — California  land  frauds — Limantour — Mrs. 
Gaines'  case — Description — Naval  frauds  during  the  rebellion— Over 
issue  of  bonds — The  lobby  schemes  of  1873 — Mileage  frauds — Full 
story  of  the  back  pay  swindle — Cost  of  running  the  Government 
now-a-days — A  shameless  Puritan  member — God  in  the  constitution 
—The  remedy 354 

CHAPTER   XXL 

The  Whiskey  Frauds. 

Reason  the  frauds  were  not  previously  punished — Magnitude  of  the 
Ring — Danger  to  informers — The  two  taxes — Labors  of  Bristow — 
Plan  finally  carried  out — Special  agent  on  Pacific  coast — Oflficcrs 
there — Details  of  fraud  on  file  in  Revenue  Oflfice  at  Washington 
long  ago — Dep.  Col.  McGrue's  testimony — Amounts  given  to  vari- 
ous members  of  the  Ring — Testimony  of  Ulrich — Testimony  of 
Alfred  Bevis — Case  of  Babcock — Sad  plight  of  Attorney-GeneraL    383 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Our  National  Disgrace. 

Sketch  of  Life  of  Belknap — Cause  of  downfall — Testimony  of  Evans — 
Amount  paid  Belknap — Additional  facts •  394 

CHAPTEE   XXIII. 

J  The  Republican  Convention  of  1876. 

The  Assemblage — Preliminary  Workings — The  Various  Candidates — 
Tlie  Platform— The  various  Ballots  for  President— The  Ballot  for 
Vice-President 4^3 


CONTENTS.  XIU 

CHAPTER   XXIV. 

Rutherford  B,  Hayes. 

Early  Life— Education — Early  Career  as  a  Lawyer — His  Career  dur- 
ing the  War — His  Record  as  Governor  of  Ohio — His  Nomination 
and  His  Relation  to  it — His  Letter  of  Acceptance 410 

CHAPTER   XXY. 

William  A.  Wheeler. 

Birthplace — ^Early  Life — Struggle  for  Education — His  First  Office — 
His  Professional  Abilities  and  Success — Various  Political  Offices — 
Reasons  for  His  Nomination  for  Vice-President — The  Additional 
Strength  to  the  Ticket— His  Personal  Character  and  Fortune.    .  420 

CHAPTER   XXYL 

The  Democratic  Convention. 
The  General  Organization — The  Platform — The  Ballots 424 

CHAPTER  XXVII.  • 

Samuel  J.  Tilden. 

Parentage — ^Early  Life — Educational  Opportunities,  and  How  He 
Improved  Them — Early  Experience  in  Politics — Success — Why  He 
Left  Politics  and  Followed  His  Profession — Connection  with  Vari- 
ous Celebrated  Cases — His  Fortune,  and  How  It  Accumulated  so 
Rapidly — His  Labor  for  Reform  in  New  York  City — His  Work 
since  He  has  been  Governor. 429 

CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

Thomas  A.  Hendricks. 

Birthplace — ^Parentage — ^Early  Life  and  Education — His  Abilities 
and  Success  as  a  Lawyer — Political  Life — Peculiar  Position  on  the 
Question  of  Hard  Money — Personal  Popularity  in  His  Own  State.  448 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Various  Political  Statistics.  ^^' 


mTEODUOTOET  CHAPTER 


The  public  mind  is  at  last  exercised  on  the  subject  of  schem- 
ing and  jobbery. 

The  Credit  Mobilier  investigation  accomplished  what  many 
years  of  unthanked  agitation  and  challenge  failed  to  do.  It 
reached  such  eminent  reputations  and  made  such  general  wreck 
of  political  prospects  and  accomplishments,  that  every  class  of 
citizens — even  those  who  came  to  scoff,  remained  beside  their 
Capitol  to  pray.  This  was  the  first  element  of  encouragement ; 
for  it  proved  that  in  every  extremity  of  the  American  nation 
there  is  still  a  public  sentiment  to  be  found,  and  it  will  rally  on 
the  side  of  good  morals  and  the  reputation  of  the  state  if  it 
understands  the  necessity. 

The  people  must  not  be  blamed  if,  in  the  great  variety  of 
aifairs  and  investigations,  they  often  look  on  confused  and  apa- 
thetic. Our  government  is  so  extensive  in  area  and  so  diversi- 
fied in  operations,  that  it  requires  men  of  state — statesmen — to 
keep  its  machinery  in  order  and  prevent  waste,  neglect,  inter- 
ference, and  incendiarism.  No  amount  of  mere  honesty  and 
good  negative  inclination  can  keep  the  ship  of  state  headed 
well  to  the  wind.  A  reasonable  experience  in  civil  affairs, 
education,  and  executive  capacity  are  requisite,  and  it  is  when 
the  accidents  of  war  and  the  extremities  of  political  parties 
bring  men  without  these  qualities  to  the  surface  that  the  enemy 
of  public  order  and  well  regulated  government  seeks  and  finds 
his  opportunity. 

Such  is  our  present  condition.  It  is  to  our  noble  system  of 
schools  and  our  unhampered  social  civilization  that  we  owe  the 
moderate  capacity,  even  of  men  of  accident,  for  public  affairs. 


IG  INTRODUCTORY. 

From  the  time  of  President  Fillmore,  all  our  Chief  Magistrates 
have  been  of  this  popular  growth.  Mr.  Lincoln  proved  to  be 
the  possessor  of  powers  extraordinary  in  their  combination, 
ranging  from  the  Jesuitry  of  the  frivolous  to  the  depth  and 
gravity  of  the  heroic,  and,  at  last,  the  tragic.  He  kept  in  view 
great  objects  of  human  performance,  and  show^ed  how  profoundly 
his  inherited  idea  of  the  equality  of  rights  and  his  belief  in  the 
destiny  of  America  to  protect  and  teach  them,  animated  his 
conduct.  He  bore  the  sword  of  the  country  while  constantly 
possessed  of  the  ambition  to  preserve  its  nationality  and  expel 
slavery ;  his  amiable  nature  added  to  these  achievements  the 
softness  and  sweetness  of  a  personal  mission,  and  his  lofty  fate 
the  solemnity  of  a  personal  martyrdom. 

The  elements  of  corruption,  inseparable  from  human  nature, 
had  long  existed  in  a  more  or  less  organized  form  in  the  United 
States,  and  they  waxed  in  strength  and  took  enormous  propor- 
tions during  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration.  He  was  a  states- 
man and  kept  his  mind  steadily  upon  the  larger  objects,  preferring 
to  leave  the  correction  of  incidental  evils  to  the  administrators 
who  should  succeed  the  war.  Had  he  been  of  a  desponding 
spirit,  and  nervous  and  violent  upon  errors  of  omission  and 
commission  by  the  way,  we  might  never  have  kept  in  view  the 
main  purposes  of  the  war,  but  would  have  been  demoralized  by  the 
ten  thousand  peculations  and  intrigues  which  marked  the  course 
of  that  extraordinary  conflict. 

It  is  our  province  and  the  task  of  statesmanship  in  our  time, 
to  return  along  the  course  of  those  war-ridden  years  and  take 
up  their  civil  grievances,  exhibit  them  clearly  and  correct  them 
unflinchingly.  If  we  do  not  do  so  the  Union  is  too  great  for  us 
and  emancipation  has  been  a  mockery. 

The  opportunities  for  gain  at  the  public  and  general  expense, 
had  been  too  vast  during  the  war  to  be  suddenly  relinquished 
at  the  peace.  President  Johnson  was  as  honest  personally  as 
President  Lincoln,  but  the  division  of  arms  was  now  succeeded 
by  a  conflict  of  policy  in  which  the  harpies  who  had  studied  the 
Government  to  take  advantage  of  it  plied  between  both  sides, 


INTRODUCTORY.  17 

and  by  the  common  weakness  of  the  administration  and  Con- 
gress continued  their  work.  They  set  up  the  audacious  prop- 
osition that  the  schemes  which  prevailed  in  tlie  war  and  the 
grade  of  taxation  consequent  upon  it  were  the  declared  national 
policy.  A  large  proportion  of  the  capital  and  enterprise  of  the 
country  took  the  same  ground.  The  currency  was  maintained 
in  its  expanded  amount,  and  war  was  even  declared  upon  gold, 
the  standard  of  valuation  throughout  civilization.  High  prices 
and  high  wages  were  advocated  as  evidences  of  national  happi- 
ness, and,  of  course,  high  salaries  were  demanded  to  make 
public  and  private  conditions  consistent  with  each  other.  The 
prevalence  of  money,  work,  and  rank  during  the  war  were  not 
suffered  to  relax,  and  Congress  undertook  to  supply  artificial 
means  of  prosperity  by  laying  out  schemes,  subsidizing  and 
endowing  corporations,  increasing  offices  and  commissions,  and 
altering  the  tariff  and  the  tax  list.  The  victorious  side  in  the 
wrangle  about  policy  was  soon  represented  in  congress  by  a 
great  number  of  adventurers,  foreigners  in  the  constituency 
they  affected  to  represent,  and  shameless  and  unknown. 

At  this  period  the  third  President  of  the  new  era  was  elected, 
a  brave  and  victorious  soldier,  who  was  in  part  a  pupil  and 
associate  of  the  loose  notions  of  the  period.  He  had  a  modest 
person,  and  this,  with  his  historic  exploits,  affected  the  sensibil- 
ities of  his  countrymen,  including  many  of  the  larger  men  in 
literature,  criticism,  and  society,  so  that  this  personal  sympathy, 
added  to  the  financial  necessities  of  the  time,  and  the  well 
organized  Northern  sentiment  of  the  majority  of  the  people 
carried  him  again  into  the  White  House.  Whatever  might 
have  been  the  capacity, or  incapacity, of  General  Gra^it  to  direct 
the  law  makers  and  give  example  to  the  laws,  he  sank  into  a 
relatively  inconspicuous  place  almost  at  the  moment  of  his 
second  inauguration  by  the  nearly  simultaneous  exposure  of  a 
series  of  old  and  new  corruptions  in  congress  which  involved 
the  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  the  Chairman  of  the 
three  leading  committees  of  Congress,  the  head  of  the  Protec- 


18  INTRODUCTORY. 

tion  School  in  public  life,  half  a  dozen  senators  and  as  many 
members  of  the  House,  of  both  parties. 

The  Vice-President  departing  and  the  new  Vice-President 
acceding,  both  complicated  in  the  celebrated  Credit  Mobilier 
corruption,  confronted  the  public  gaze  as  actors  in  the  same 
ceremonial  with  President  Grant,  who  was  waiting  to  deliver 
his  second  inaugural  address  to  the  public.  Five  senators, 
Bogy,  Casserly,  Clayton,  Caldwell,  and  Pomeroy,  were  at  that 
moment  under  accusation  of  purchasing  their  seats  in  the 
Senate.  Three  judges  of  the  United  States  Courts,  Delahay, 
Sherman,  and  Durrell,  were  under  impeachment  or  imputation 
for  complicity  in  the  Credit  Mobilier  intrigue.  The  proudest 
foreheads  in  the  national  legislature  were  abashed.  It  was  a 
melancholy  and  disgraceful  spectacle,  and  it  saddened  the  Capi- 
tal  and  cast  a  cloud  over  all  the  country. 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  make  Washington  at  the  pres- 
ent day  visible  to  voters,  so  that  they  can  be  guided  in  criticism 
upon  abuses  such  as  have  been  related.  The  course  of  the 
chapters  is  purposely  made  discursive  so  that  the  mind  can 
be  carried  through  a  variety  of  scenes  without  flagging. 


CHAPTER  II. 


HOW  WASHINGTON  CAME  TO  BE. 

The  American  Capital  is  the  only  seat  of  government  of  a 
first-class  power  which  was  a  thought  and  performance  of  the 
Government  itself.  It  used  to  be  called,  in  the  Madisonian  era, 
"  the  only  virgin  Capital  in  the  world." 

St.  Petersburg  was  the  thought  of  an  Emperor,  but  the  Cap- 
ital of  Russia  long  afterward  remained  at  Moscow,  and  Peter 
the  Great  said  that  he  designed  St.  Petersburg  to  be  only  "  a 
window  looking  out  into  Europe." 

Washington  City  was  designed  to  be  not  merely  a  window, 
but  a  whole  inhabitancy  in  fee  simple  for  the  deliberations  of 
Congress,  and  they  were  to  exercise  exclusive  legislation  over 
it.  So  the  Constitutional  Convention  ordained ;  and,  in  less 
than  seven  weeks  after  the  thirteenth  state  ratified  the  Consti- 
tution, the  place  of  the  Capital  was  designated  by  Congress  to 
the  Potomac  River.  In  six  months  more,  the  precise  territory 
on  the  Potomac  was  defined,  under  the  personal  eye  of  Washing- 
ton. 

The  motive  of  building  an  entirely  new  city  for  the  Federal 
seat  was  not  arbitrary,  like  Peter  the  Great's  will  with  St.  Peters- 
burg, nor  fanciful,  like  that  of  the  founder  of  Versailles.  It 
was,  like  many  of  our  institutions,  an  act  of  reflection  suggested 
by  such  harsh  experience  as  once  drove  the  Papal  head  from 
Rome  to  Avignon,  and,  in  our  day,  has  withdrawn  the  French 
Government  from  Paris  to  Versailles.  Four  years  before  the 
Constitution  was  made.  Congress,  while  sitting  at  Philadelphia, 
— the  largest  city  in  the  States, — had  been  grossly  insulted  by 
some  of  the  unpaid  troops  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  the 


20  WASHINGTON. 

Pennsylvania  authorities  showed  it  no  protection.  Congress  with 
commendable  dignity,  withdrew  to  Princeton,  and  there,  in  the 
collegiate  halls,  Eldridge  Gerry,  of  Massachusetts,  (whose 
remains  now  lie  in  the  Congressional  Cemetery  of  Washington,) 
moved  that  the  buildings  for  the  use  of  Congress  be  erected 
either  on  the  Delaware  or  the  Potomac. 

The  State  of  Maryland  was  an  early  applicant  for  the  perma- 
nent seat  of  the  Government,  and,  after  the  result  at  Philadel- 
phia, hastened  to  offer  Congress  its  Capitol  edifice  and  other 
accommodations  at  Annapolis.  Congress  accepted  the  invita- 
tion, and  therefore,  it  was  at  Annapolis  that  Washington  sur- 
rendered his  commission,  in  the  presence  of  that  body.  The 
career  of  Congress  at  Annapolis — which  was  a  very  perfect,  tidy, 
and  pretty  miniature  city — left  a  good  impression  upon  the  mem- 
bers for  years  afterwards,  and  was  probably  not  without  its  influ- 
ence in  making  Maryland  soil  the  future  Federal  District.  The 
growing  "  Baltimore  Town,"  which  was  the  first  place  in  Amer- 
ica, after  the  revolution,  to  exhibit  the  Western  spirit  of  "  driv- 
ing things,"  appeared  in  the  lobby  and  prints,  as  an  anxious 
competitor  for  the  award  of  the  Capital ;  and  the  stimulation  of 
that  day  bore  fruits  in  the  first  and  only  admirable  patriotic 
monument  raised  to  Washington,  while  Washington  City  was 
yet  seeking  to  survive  its  ashes.  With  the  jealousy  of  a  neigh- 
bor, the  snug  port  and  portage  settlement  of  Georgetown  opposed 
Baltimore,  and  directed  attention  to  itself  as  deserving  the  Fed- 
eral bestowal,  and  counted,  not  without  reason,  upon  the  influ- 
ence of  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  its  behalf. 

Many  other  places  strove  for  the  exaggerated  honor  and  profit 
of  the  Capital,  and  it  is  tradition  in  half-a-dozen  villages  of  the 
country, — at  Havre  de  Grace,  Trenton,  Wrightsville,  Pa ;  Ger- 
mantown.  Pa ;  Williamsport,  Md ;  Kingston,  N.  Y.,  and  others— 
that  the  seat  of  government  was  at  one  time  nearly  their  prize. 
Two  points,  however,  gained  steadily  on  the  rest, — New  York 
and  some  indefinite  spot  on  the  Potomac.  The  Eastern  Con- 
gressmen, used  to  the  life  of  towns,  and  little  in  love  with  what 
they  considered  the  barbaric  plantation  life  of  the  South,  desired 


SELECTING  THE   SITE.  21 

to  assemble  amongst  urbane  comforts,  in  a  place  already  estab- 
lished. Provincialism,  prejudice,  and  avarice  all  played  their 
part  in  the  contest ;  and,  in  that  day  of  paper  money,  it  was 
thought  by  many  that  the  currency  must  follow  the  Capital. 
Hence,  according  to  Jefferson,  whose  accounts  on  this  head  do 
not  read  very  clearly,  the  financial  problems  of  the  time  were 
offset  by  the  selection  of  the  Capital.  Hamilton  deferred  to  the 
South  the  Federal  City,  and  had  his  Treasury  policy  adopted 
in  exchange  for  it.  When  Jefferson  and  Hamilton  came  to 
write  about  each  other,  we  are  reminded  of  the  adage  that, 
when  the  wine  is  in,  the  wit  is  out ;  but  it  is  agreeable  to  reflect 
that  they  were  both  accordant  with  Washington  on  this  point, 
and  Jefferson  had  great  influence  over  the  young  Capital's  for- 
tunes. 

Congress  made  a  reasonable  decision  on  the  subject.  The 
comforts  of  a  home  were  to  be  accorded  at  Philadelphia  for  ten 
years,  to  quiet  Philadelphia,  and  meantime  a  new  place  was  to- 
be  planned  on  the  Potomac  River,  and  public  edifices  erected 
upon  it.  The  actual  selection  and  plan  were  to  be  left  to  a  com- 
mission selected  by  the  President ;  and  thus  the  Federal  City 
is  an  executive  act,  deliberated  between  Washington  and  private 
citizens. 

Mortifying,  indeed,  was  the  early  work  of  making  the  Capi- 
tal City  for  the  three  Commissioners,  whose  ranks  were  renew- 
ed as  one  grew  despondejit  and  another  enraged. 

It  was  July  16,  1790,  that  President  Washington  approved 
the  bill  of  six  sections  which  directed  the  acceptance  of  ten 
miles  square  "  for  the  permanent  seat  of  the  Government," 
*' between  the  mouths  of  the  Eastern  Branch  and  Conogo- 
cheague."  The  bill  had  become  a  law  by  a  close  vote  in  both 
Houses,  and  the  Capital  might  have  been  placed,  under  the 
terms  of  it,  at  the  Great  Falls,  or  near  the  future  battle-site  of 
Ball's  Bluff,  or  under  the  presence  of  the  Sugar-Loaf  Mountain, 
in  the  vale  of  the  River  Antietam.  It  is  possible  that  Wash- 
ington himself,  who  held  discretionary  control  over  the  Com- 
missioners, was  not  firmly  of  the  opinion  that  the  future  city 


22  WASHINGTON. 

should  stand  on  tide-water ;  for  he  had  previously  written  let- 
ters, in  praise  of  the  thrifty  German  country  beyond  the  Mon- 
ocacy,  in  Maryland.  But  the  matter  of  transportation  and  pas- 
sage was  greatly  dependent,  in  those  days,  upon  navigable 
water-courses,  and  it  is  probable  that,  when  the  law  passed,  the 
spot  of  the  city  was  already  appointed. 

About  five  years  before  selecting  the  site  for  the  Federal  Cap- 
ital, Washington  made  a  canoe  upon  the  Monocacy  River,  and, 
descending  to  the  Potomac,  made  the  exploration  of  the  whole 
river,  from  the  mountains  to  tide-water,  in  order  to  test  the 
feasibility  of  lock  and  dam  navigation.  It  is  apparent,  from 
his  letters  to  Arthur  Young,  the  Earl  of  Buchan,  and  others, 
that  he  was  aware  that  the  value  of  his  estates  on  tide- 
water was  declining,  and  he  wanted  both  the  city  and  the  canal 
contiguous  to  them.  A  noble  man  might  well,  however,  have 
such  an  attachment  to  the  haunts  of  his  youth  as  to  wish  to  see  ,*•* 
it  beautified  by  a  city.  -a^ 

The  bill  was  passed  while  Congress  sat  in  New  York ;  six  ^ 
months  later,  on  January  24, 1791,  Washington,  at  Philadel-  3 
phia,  made  proclamation  that,  "  After  duly  examining  and  -nm^ 
weighing  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the  several  situ-  J^ 
ations  within  the  limits,"  he  had  thrown  the  Federal  territory  ^ 
across  the  Potomac  from  Alexandria.  i 

The  site  of  the  new  district  was  not  entirely  the  wilderness  ""^ 
it  has  been  represented.     The  Potomac  had  been  explored  up  £5 
to  this  point,  and  as  far  as  the  Little  Falls  above,  by  Henry 
Fleet,  one  hundred  and  sixty  years  before.     Fleet  was  the  first     \ 
civilized  being  who  ever  looked  upon  the  site  of  Washington, 
and  his  manuscript  story  of  ascending  the  river  was  never  pul)- 
lished  until  1871.     When  Leonard  Calvert  arrived  in  the  Poto- 
mac, in  1634,  he  went  up  to  confer  with  this   adventurous  fur- 
trader,  who  had  been  many  years  in  the  country. 

"  The  place,"  said  Fleet,  evidently  alluding  to  the  contracted 
Potomac  just  above  Georgetown,  "  is,  without  all  question,  the 
most  healthful  and  pleasant  place  in  all  this  country,  and  mosi 
convenient  for  habitation ;  the  air  temperate  in  Summer  and  [^^ 


EARLY   SETTLEMENT   OF   THE   DISTRICT.  23 

not  violent  in  Winter.  It  aboundeth  with  all  manner  of  fish. 
The  Indians  in  one  night  commonly  will  catch  thirty  sturgeons 
in  a  place  where  the  river  is  not  over  twelve  fathoms  broad. 
And,  for  deer,  buffaloes,  bears,  turkeys,  the  woods  do  swarm 
with  them,  and  the  soil  is  exceedingly  fertile  ;  but,  above  this 
place,  the  country  is  rocky  and  mountainous,  like  Canada. 
*  *  *  *  We  had  not  rowed  above  three  miles  but  we  might 
hear  the  Falls  to  roar." 

The  early  settlers  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  kept  to  the  nav- 
igable streams,  and  the  earliest  pioneers  of  the  terrace  country 
of  Maryland  were  Scotch  and  Scotch-Irish,  some  Germans,  and 
a  few  Catholics. 

Georgetown  and  Bellhaven  (or  Alexandria)  were  rather  old 
places  when  the  surveys  were  made  for  Washington  City,  and  the 
former  had  been  laid  out  fully  forty  years.  The  army  of  Gen- 
eral Braddock  had  landed  at  Alexandria,  and  a  large  portion 
of  his  army  marched  from  Rock  Creek,  as  the  infant  George- 
town was  then  called,  for  Fredericktown  and  the  Ohio.  As 
early  as  1763,  the  father  of  Gen.  James  Wilkinson  purchased  a 
tract  of  "  five  hundred  acres  of  land  on  the  Tyber  andthe  Poto- 
mac, which  probably  comprehended  the  President's  house ;" 
but  the  purchaser's  wife  objected  to  a  removal  to  such  an  isola- 
ted spot,  and  the  property  was  transferred  to  one  Thomas  Johns. 
In  1775,  the  young  Wilkinson  "  shouldered  a  firelock  at  George- 
town, in  a  company  commanded  by  a  Rhode  Island  Quaker, 
Thomas  Richardson,"  in  which  also  the  future  Gen.  Lingan 
was  a  subaltern,  and  this  full  company  drilled  for  the  Revolu- 
tionary struggle  "  on  a  small  spot  of  table-land  hanging  over 
Rock  Creek,  below  the  upper  bridge."  As  Wilkinson  lived 
"  thirty  miles  in  the  up-country,  and  was  always  punctual  at 
parade,"  we  may  infer  that  Georgetown  was  the  most  consider- 
able place  in  all  this  quarter  of  Maryland.  As  early  as  1779, 
William  Wirt,  whose  parents  resided  at  Bladensburg,  went  to  "  a 
Classical  Academy  at  Georgetown ;"  and  he  and  others  long 
bore  remembrance  of  the  passage  of  the  French  and  American 
armies  from  north  to  south  over  the  ferry  at  that  place,  of 


24  WASHINGTON. 

encampment  at  Kalorama  Hill,  and  wagons  loaded  with  specie 
crossing  Rock  Creek.  Gen.  Washington  also  designated 
Georgetown  as  one  of  the  three  great  places  of  deposit  for  mil- 
itary stores ;  and  so  important  was  Alexandria  that  Charles 
Lee,  in  his  plan  of  treason,  had  proposed  to  cut  the  Northern 
States  from  the  South  by  occupying  it  with  a  permanent  detach- 
ment of  British  troops,  who  should  keep  open  the  ferries  between 
Alexandria  and  Annapolis,  and,  by  menacing  the  rich  farms  of 
the  Gerriian  settlers  in  the  up-country,  compel  them  to  starve 
out  the  Patriot  armies. 

The  port-town  of  Bladensburg  was  now  just  upon  the  decline, 
and  the  period  had  come  when  the  interior  parts  of  Maryland, 
Pennsylvania,  and  Virginia  were  showing  forth  their  promises. 
Maryland  had  contained  considerably  more  population  than 
New  York  during  the  Bevolutionary  War,  and  we  imay  conceive 
Georgetown  and  Alexandria  to  have  been  amongst  the  best  grade 
of  secondary  towns  at  that  period.  They  stood,  as  now,  in  full 
sight  of  each  other ;  and  the  ridgy  basin  and  lower  terraces 
between  them,  where  the  Federal  City  was  to  rise,  presented  a 
few  good  farms  tilled  by  slaves,  and  was  already  marked  for  a 
couple  of  rival  settlements  before  the  Commissioners  adopted  it. 

One  of  these  prospective  settlements  was  located  near  the 
present  National  Observatory,  and  took  the  name  of  Hamburg, 
afterward  Funkstown,  the  other  was  projected  near  the  present 
Navy- Yard,  and  was  named  after  the  proprietor  of  the  estate, 
Carrollsburg.  At  any  rate,  there  were  enough  people  on  the  site 
to  give  the  Commissioners  a  great  deal  of  trouble  with  their 
bickering  and  rapacity  ;  and  it  is  likely  that  the  idea  got  abroad 
in  advance  of  the  official  choice,  that  here  was  to  be  the  mighty 
Capital,  and  therefore  lands  and  lots  had  been  matters  of  con- 
siderable speculation.    - 

Few  who  had  passed  the  ferry  at  Georgetown,  and  belield  the 
sight  from  the  opposite  hills  of  Virginia,  could  fail  to  have 
marked  the  breadth  of  the  picture,  and  the  strong  colors  in  the 
ground  and  the  environing  wall  of  wooded  heights,  which  rolled 
back  against  the  distant  sky,  as  if  to  enclose  a  noble  arena  of 


PICTURESQUENESS   OF  THE   SITE.  25 

landscape,  fit  for  the  supreme  deliberations  of  a  continental 
nation. 

Dropping  down  from  those  heights  by  stately  gradations,  over 
several  miles,  to  a  terrace  of  hills  in  the  middle  ground,  the 
foreground  then  divided,  parallel  with  the  eye,  into  a  basin  and 
a  plateau.  The  plateau  on  the  right  showed  one  prominent  but 
not  precipitous  hill,  with  an  agreeable  slope,  at  the  back  of 
which  the  Potomac  reached  a  deep,  supporting  arm,  while 
around  the  base  meandered  a  creek  that  changed  course  when 
half-way  advanced,  and  then  flowed  to  the  left,  parallel  with 
knolls,  straight  through  the  plain  or  basin, — defuiing  to  the 
inspired  eye,  as  plainly  as  revelation,  the  avenues,  grades,  and 
commanding  positions  of  a  city. 

As  such,  Washington  must  have  builded  it  up  in  his  own 
formative  mind ;  for  many  a  time  he  had  passed  it  in  review. 
He  did  not  require  to  take  note  of  the  shiftless  slave  farms  for 
which  the  ground  had  been  already  broken.  Where  yonder 
orchard  grew,  he  saw  the  Executive  Mansion,  with  its  grounds 
extending  down  to  the  river-side  cottage  of  that  curmudgeon 
Scotch  planter  who  was  to  be  among  the  last  to  say  words  of 
impudence  to  the  father  of  the  city.  Where  the  pleasant  hill 
swelled  up  to  the  clear  skies  in  the  night,  Washington  saw  the 
spiritual  outlines  of  the  fair  white  Capitol,  soon  to  be  embodied 
there.  Flowing  down  into  the  plain,  and  extending  back  over 
the  hill  of  the  Capitol,  he  realized  the  lower  and  the  upper  city, 
on  which  a  circle  of  villas  in  the  higher  background  should 
some  day  look  down  ;  and  all  the  undulating  space  between  the 
blue  heights  of  Georgetown,  from  the  river  back  to  the  table- 
land, should,  by  another  century,  smoke  with  population,  wor- 
ship witli  bells,  and  march  with  music  to  honor  the  founder  of 
this  virgin  Capital. 

Having  named  the  three  civil  Commissioners  to  whom  Con- 
gress— wiser  than  Congresses  of  a  later  period — committed  the 
business  of  Capital-making,  Washington  set  out  from  Philadel- 
phia, to  confer  with  tliem  on  the  spot. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Maryland  roads  in  those  days,  in  March, 
2 


%  26 


WASHINGTON. 


that  the  President  drove  down  the  Eastern  shore  of  Maryland, 
instead  of  crossing  the  Susquehanna,  and  was  ferried  over  from 
Eockhall  to  Annapolis.  At  the  latter  place,  he  rested  all  Sat- 
urday, receiving  hospitality  ;  and,  on  Sunday,  continued  his 
journey  hy  Queen  Ann  to  Bladensburg,  where  he  dined  and  slept. 
Next  morning  he  took  breakfast  at  Suter's  tavern,  a  one-story 
frame  in  Georgetown, — having  occupied  one  week  in  fatiguing 
and  perilous  travel  from  Philadelphia. 

From  the  heights  of  Georgetown,  Washington  could  look 
over  the  half-uncultivated  tract,  where  the  commissioners  had 
plotted  a  part  of  their  surveys  for  the  Federal  City,  and  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  was  then  a  path  through  an  older  swamp  from 
Georgetown  to  Carrollsburg. 

On  Tuesday,  a  misty  and  disagreeable  day,  "Washington  rode 
out  at  seven  o'clock,  with  David  Stuart,  Daniel  Carroll,  and 
Thomas  Johnson,  the  three  Commissioners,  and  with  Mr. 
Andrew  Ellicott  and  Major  L' Enfant,  who  were  surveying  the 
grounds  and  projecting  the  streets  of  the  city.  "  I  derived  no 
great  satisfaction,"  says  Washington,  "  from  the  review,"  and 
this  we  can  readily  suppose  from  our  present  knowledge  of 
what  might  be  the  condition  of  the  soil  of  the  District  in  the 
spring  of  the  year,  on  a  damp  day,  with  the  landholders  of 
Georgetown  and  Carrollsburg  contending  with  each  other  by 
the  way,  with  the  numerous  uninvited  idlers  pressing  after, 
and  the  crude  and  tangled  nature  of  the  region. 

That  night  at  six  o'clock,  Washington  endeavored  to  con- 
trive an  accommodation  between  the  Georgetowners  and 
Carrollsburgers,  and  it  was  probably  at  this  time  that  he 
had  reason  to  designate  Davy  Burns,  the  Scotch  farmer  and 
father  to  the  future  heiress  of  the  city,  as  "  The  obstinate  Mr. 
Burns."  He  dined  that  night  at  Colonel  Forrest's,  with  a  large 
company.  The  next  day,  the  contending  landholders  agreed  to 
Washington's  suggestions,  and  entered  into  articles  to  surren- 
der half  their  lots  when  surveyed  ;  and,  having  given  some  of 
his  characteristically  precise  instructions  to  the  engineers  and 
others,  the  President  crossed  the  Potomac  in  the  ferry-boat, 


MAJOR   L'eNFANT'S   PLAN.  27 

his  equipage  following,  and  dined  at  Alexandria,  and  slept  that 
night  at  Mount  Yernon,  his  homestead. 

There  is  a  statue  of  Washington  in  one  of  the  public  circles 
of  the  Capital  City,  representing  him  on  a  terrified  steed  doing 
battle-duty ;  but  a  local  treatment  of"  the  subject  would  have 
been  more  touching  and  thoughtful ;  the  veteran  of  war  and 
politics,  worn  down  with  the  friction  of  public  duty  and  rising 
party  asperity,  riding  through  the  marshes  and  fields  of  Wash- 
ington, on  the  brink  of  his  sixtieth  year,  to  give  the  foundling 
government  he  had  reared  an  honorable  home.  Could  a  finer 
subject  appeal  to  the  artist  or  to  the  municipality  of  Washing- 
ton ;  the  virgin  landscape  of  the  Capital,  and  this  greatest  of 
founders  of  cities  since  Romulus,  surrounded  by  the  two  engi- 
neers, the  three  commissioners,  and  certain  courteous  denizens, 
and  seeking  to  reason  the  necessities  of  the  state  and  the  pride 
of  the  country  into  the  flinty  soul  of  Davy  Burns,  that  successor 
of  Dogberry, — for  he  is  said  to  have  been  a  magistrate  ? 

The  new  city  was  one  of  the  plagues  of  General  Washington 
for  the  remainder  of  his  days,  because  he  was  very  sensitive  as 
to  its  success ;  and  it  had  to  suffer  the  concentrated  fire  of  crit- 
icism and  witticism,  domestic  and  foreign,  as  well  as  more 
serious  financial  adversity.  He  never  beheld  any  of  the  glory 
of  it ;  and  the  fact  that  he  had  been  responsible  for  it,  and  had 
settled  it  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  estates,  probably  weighed 
somewhat  upon  his  spirits  in  the  midst  of  that  light  repartee 
which  a  grave  nature  cannot  answer.  Greater  is  he  who  keep- 
eth  his  temper  than  he  who  buildeth  a  city.  That  Washington 
did  both  well,  the  latter  century  can  answer  better  than  the 
former.  The  extravagant  plan  of  Major  L'Enfant  has  not  bee^ 
vindicated  until  now,  when  the  habitations  of  one  hundred 
thousand  people  begin  to  develop  upon  the  plane  of  his  magnifi- 
cence. The  neighbors  of  General  Washington  had  no  capacity 
in  that  early  day  to  congregate  in  cities,  and  the  Federal  site 
had  to  wait  for  a  gregarious  domination  and  a  period  of  com- 
parative wealth.  It  is  yet  to  be  tested  whether  the  orna- 
mentation of  the  city  is  to  conduce  to  an  equally  Republican 


28  WASHINGTON. 

rule  with  that  of  more  squalid  times ;  for,  New  York  excepted, 
Washington  is  now  the  dearest  city  in  America. 

The  trustees  of  the  Federal  City  in  whom  at  law  nominally 
reposed  the  conveyed  property,  were  Thomas  Beall  and  John 
M.  Gautt.  The  chief  owners  of  the  site  were  David  Burns, 
Sanmel  Davidson,  Notley  Young,  and  Daniel  Carroll.  i 

The  cost  of  the  ground  on  which  Washington  City  stands 
was  truly  insignificant  as  compared  with  the  remarkable  expen- 
ditures of  the  years^STl,  '72,  73. 

The  few  property-holders  agreed  to  convey  to  the  Government 
out  of  their  farm-lands  as  much  ground  as  would  be  required 
for  streets,  avenues,  public-building-sites,  reservations,  areas, 
etc.,  and  to  surrender,  also,  one-half  of  the  remaining  land,  to 
be  sold  by  the  United  States  as  it  might  deem  fit, — receiving, 
however,  at  the  rate  of  twenty-five  pounds  per  acre  for  the 
public  grounds,  but  nothing  for  the  streets.  In  other  words, 
the  Government  through  its  three  commissioners,  was  to  plot 
out  the  Federal  City  in  the  first  place,  delineating  all  the 
grounds  required  for  buildings  and  reservations,  and  surveying 
the  parts  to  be  inhabited.  It  was  then  to  divide  these  inhab- 
itable lots  equally  between  itself  and  the  landholders,  and  sell 
its  own  lots  when,  and  on  what  prices  and  terms,  it  pleased, 
and,  out  of  the  proceeds  of  such  sales,  to  make  its  payments 
for  the  national  grounds  and  reservations. 

In  this  way  the  Government  took  seventeen  great  parcels  of 
ground  out  of  the  general  plan,  such  as  now  surround  the 
Capitol,  the  President's  House,  etc.,  and  the  same  amounted 
to  five  hundred  and  forty-one  acres.  At  sixty-six  dollars  and 
sixty-six  cents  per  acre,  this  yielded  to  the  farm-holders  thirty- 
six  thousand  ninety-nine  dollars, — a  very  small  sum  indeed  if ; 
we  compute  interest  upon  it,  and  subtract  principal  and  inter- 
est from  the  present  value  of  the  ground. 

The  building  lots  assigned  to  the  Government  numbered  ten 
thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty-six.  The  amount  of  sales  of 
these  lots,  up  to  the  year  1834,  was  seven  hundred  forty-ono 
thousand  twenty-four  dollars  and  forty-five  cents,  and  an  assess- 


AREA   OF  THE   CITY.  29 

mcnt  upon  the  unsold  lots,  made  at  that  time,  brought  the 
G-overnment's  share  up  to  eight  hundred  fifty  thousand  dollars. 
Besides  this  handsome  speculation,  the  State  of  Virginia  voted 
to  the  Government  the  sum  of  one  hundred  twenty  thousand 
dollars,  and  the  State  of  Maryland  seventy-two  thousand  dol- 
lars, as  a  concession  for  planting  the  great  city  on  their  bor- 
ders. With  equal  courtesy,  the  Government  gave  away  a  great 
many  lots  to  such  institutions  as  the  Columbian  and  George- 
town Colleges,  and  the  Washington  and  St.  Vincents  Orphan 
Asylums  ;  and  it  also  squandered  many  lots  upon  less  worthy 
solicitors,  giving  a  depot  site  away  to  a  railway  company  in 
1872,  which  was  worth  several  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

In  the  entire  area  included  under  the  above  agreement,  there 
were  seven  thousand  one  hundred  acres,  with  a  circumference 
of  fourteen  miles.  The  uneven  plain  of  the  city  extended  four 
miles  along  the  river,  and  averaged  three-quarters  of  a  mile  in 
breadth.  The  only  streams  were  the  Tiber,  which  divided  the 
plain  nearly  equally ;  James'  Creek,  emptying  into  the  mouth 
of  the  Eastern  Branch ;  and  Slash  Run,  emptying  into  Rock 
Creek.  These  streams  still  preserve  the  names  they  received 
long  before  the  Capital  was  pitched.  The  first  dedicatory  act 
was  to  fix  the  corner-stone  at  Jones'  Point,  near  Alexandria. 
James  Muir  preached  the  sermon,  Daniel  Carroll  and  David 
Stuart  placed  the  stone,  and  the  Masons  of  Alexandria  per- 
formed their  mystic  rites. 

A  glimpse  of  the  United  States  as  it  was  at  that  day  (1791) 
will  complete  the  impression  we  may  derive  on  thus  revisiting 
the  nearly  naked  site  of  the  "  Federal  Seat."  Virginia  led  all 
the  states  with  nearly  seven  hundred  fifty  thousand  people; 
Pennsylvania  and  New  York  combined  did  little  more  than 
balance  Virginia  with  four  hundred  thirty-four  thousand  and 
three  hundred  forty  thousand  respectively.  North  Carolina 
outweighed  Massachusetts  with  three  hundred  ninety-four  thou- 
sand to  the  Bay  State's  three  hundred  seventy-nine  tliousand. 
All  the  rest  of  New  England  displayed  about  six  hundred  thou- 
sand population.      South  Carolina   and   Georgia    with  three 


30  WASHINGTON. 

hundred  thirty  thousand  people  together,  were  inferior  to 
Maryland  and  Delaware  together  by  fifty  thousand.  There 
were  only  two  Western  States,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  whose 
one  hundred  eight  thousand  people  lacked  seventy-five  thousand 
of  the  population  of  New  Jersey  and  altogether,  four  millions 
of  Americans  were  watching  with  various  human  expressions 
the  puzzle  of  the  capital  town.  Such  was  the  showing  of  the  cen- 
sus of  1790,  but  by  the  year  1800,  when  the  infant  city  was 
occupied  by  its  government,  the  country  was  one  third  greater 
in  inhabitants.  It  was  not  until  1820  that  any  state  passed 
Virginia,  but  in  1830  both  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  had 
bidden  her  good-bye. 

The  Capital  was  staked  out  the  year  after  Franklin's  death, 
thirty  years  before  the  death  of  George  III,  in  Goethe's  fifty- 
second  year  and  Schiller's  thirty-second,  sixteen  years  before 
the  first  steamboat,  two  years  before  Louis  XYI  was  guillo- 
tined, when  Louis  Phillipe  was  in  his  nineteenth  year,  while 
Count  Rochambeau  was  commander  of  the  French  army,  two 
years  after  Robespierre  became  head  deputy,  five  years  after  the 
death  of  Frederick  the  Great,  while  George  Stephenson  was  a 
boy  of  ten,  the  year  subsequent  to  the  death  of  Aden  Smith, 
the  year  John  Wesley  and  Mirabeau  died,  two  years  before 
Brissot  was  guillotined,  in  Napoleon's  twenty-second  year, 
the  year  before  Lord  Nott  died,  the  year  Morse  was  born  and 
Mirabeau  was  buried,  in  the  third  year  of  the  London  Times, 
just  after  Lafayette  had  been  the  most  powerful  man  in  France, 
three  years  before  the  death  of  Edward  Gibbon,  while  Warren 
Hastings  was  on  trial,  in  Burke's  sixty-first  year  and  Fox's 
forty-second  and  Pitt's  thirty-second,  three  years  after  the  death 
of  Chatham,  in  the  Popedom  of  Pius  VI,  while  Simon  Bolivar 
was'  a  child  eight  years  old,  the  year  Cowpcr  translated  Homer, 
and  in  Burns'  prime. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE   JOB   OF   PLANNING  THE  FEDERAL  CITY. 

According  to  the  whole  of  many  authorities  and  a  part  of 
all,  the  city  of  Washington  itself  was  a  scheme  and  the  public 
buildings  severally  were  sown  in  corruption.  That  they  have 
been  raised  in  incorruption,  however,  is  clear  to  the  cheerful, 
patriotic  mind ;  for  the  Ca^^itol  is  the  ornament  in  some  manner 
of  nearly  every  American  dwelling.  The  White  House  is  the 
most  beautiful  building  in  the  world  to  a  politician  aspiring 
toward  it.  Thousands  of  people  would  be  glad  to  get  as  much 
as  a  hand  in  the  Treasury  or  even  a  name  in  the  Pension  office. 

These  buildings  make  a  continuous  romance  in  respect  to 
their  design,  construction,  and  personal  associations.  In  their 
day  they  were  esteemed  the  noblest  edifices  on  the  continent, 
and  educed  praise  even  from  such  censorious  strangers  as  Mrs. 
Trollope.  To  this  day  the  Capitol  and  President's  house 
remain  as  they  were  exteriorly,  the  same  in  style  and  propor- 
tions, and  the  additions  to  the  Capitol  have  been  made  consistent 
with  the  old  elevation.  The  public  is  better  satisfied  with  tho 
Capitol  from  year  to  year,  and  many  men  of  culture  and  travel 
even  prefer  the  old  freestone  original  edifice  to  the  spacious 
and  costly  marble  wings.  The  President's  House  has  lost 
somewhat  of  its  superiority  as  a  residence,  owing  to  the  pro- 
gress made  in  household  comforts  during  the  last  half  century, 
but  it  is  still  admired  by  the  visitor  for  the  extent,  harmony, 
and  impressiveness  of  its  saloons.  Both  buildings  and  the  city 
as  well  invite  at  this  day  our  inquisitiveness  as  to  how  tho 
young  republic  became  posssesed  of  architects  and  engineers  of 
capacity  equal  to  such  pimple  and  effective  constructions. 


•  32  PLANNING   THE    FEDERAL   CITY. 

The  material  for  this  inquiry  is  to  be  found  in  the  journals 
and  letter  books  of  the  early  commissioners  of  the  Federal  City, 
which  are  kept  on  the  crypt  floor  of  the  Capitol  and  are  partly 
indexed.  The  personal  story  of  the  early  architects  must  be 
obtained  by  family  tradition  and  j^artly  by  recollection.  The 
printed  documents  of  cOHgress  continue  the  story  of  those  con- 
structions to  our  own  day,  but  many  of  them  are  rare  and  some 
missing,  because  the  Capitol  has  been  three  times  devastated 
by  fire  which  twice  chose  the  library  as  the  point  ot  attack. 

Let  us  first  note  the  lives  of  the  planners  of  the  city  itself. 

They  assembled  at  Georgetown  with  tents,  horses,  and 
laborers,  and  proceeded  to  plot  the  city  upon  the  site,  wdiile  the 
commissioners,  acting  for  the  executive,  raised  and  supplied 
the  money,  dealt  with  the  owners  of  the  ground  and  negotiated 
with  quarrymen,  carters,  and  boat  owners.  Every  step  was  a 
matter  of  delicacy,  and  conflicts  were  frequent  between  all  par- 
ties. A  high  degree  of  personal  independence  prevailed  in  the 
late  colonies  and  in  military,  political,  and  professional  life, 
amounting  in  many  cases  to  sensitiveness  and  jealousy. 

The  commissioners  had  little  consonance  of  temperament 
with  the  professional  men,  many  of  whom  were  foreigners,  and 
both  had  reason  to  dislike  the  natives  who  began  by  craving  the 
boon  of  the  city,  and  ended  by  showing  all  the  forms  of  queru- 
lousness  and  discontent  which  rise  from  excited  avarice. 

First  in  consideration  is  the  man  out  of  whose  mind  and  art 
were  drawn  the  design  of  Washington  city  as  we  find  it  still. 
Peter  Charles  L'Enfant  was  born  in  France,  1755,  and  made  a 
Lieutenant  in  the  French  provincial  forces.  Touched  at  an 
early  period  in  the  American  revolution  with  the  spirit  of  the 
American  Colonies  and  the  opportunities  afforded  in  the  new 
world  for  a  young  officer  and  engineer  he  tendered  his  services 
in  the  latter  capacity  to  the  United  States  in  the  autumn  of  1777. 
He  received  his  wish  and  the  appointment  of  Captain  of  Engi- 
neers February  18,  1778.  At  the  siege  of  Savannah  he  was 
wounded  and  left  on  the  field  of  battle.  After  cure  he  took  a 
position  in  the  army  under  the  immediate  eye  of  Washington 


l'enfant's  biography.  33 

and  was  promoted  Major  of  Engineers  May  2,  1873.  Hence 
the  rank  with  which  he  descends  to  history. 

At  tlie  close  of  the  Revolution  L'Enfant  commended  himself 
to  Jefferson  who  almost  monopolized  the  artistic  taste  and 
knowledge  of  the  first  administration,  and  as  the  project  for  a 
Federal  city  developed  L'Enfant  was  brought  into  very  close 
relations  with  President  Washington.  The  artistic  and.  the 
executive  mind  rarely  run  parallel,  however,  and  very  soon 
"Washington  heard  with  indignation  that  L'Enfant,  enamored 
of  his  plan  of  the  city,  had  refused  to  let  it  be  used  by  the  Com- 
missioners as  an  incitement  and  directory  to  purchasers.  The 
excuse  of  L'Enfant  appears  to  have  been  that  if  acquainted  with 
the  plan  speculators  would  build  up  his  finest  avenues  with 
unsuitable  structures.  Washington's  letter  displays  both  the 
nbility  and  weakness  of  his  architect  and  engineer : 

"  It  is  much  to  be  regretted,"  he  says,  "  that  men  who  pos- 
sess talents  which  fit  them  for  peculiar  purposes  should  almost 
invariably  be  under  the  influence  of  an  untoward  disposition  *  *. 
I  have  thought  that  for  such  employment  that  he  is  now  engaged 
in  for  prosecuting  public  works  and  carrying  them  into  effect. 
Major  L'Enfant  was  better  qualified  than  any  one  who  had  come 
within  my  knowledge  in  this  country  or  indeed  in  any  other 
I  had  no  doubt  at  the  same  time,  that  this  was  the  light  in  which 
he  considered  himself." 

This  letter  was  written  in  the  autumn  of  1791,  eight  months 
after  Jefferson  instructed  L'Enfant  as  follows  : 

"  You  are  directed  to  proceed  to  Georgetown  where  you  will 
find  Mr.  Ellicott  in  making  a  survey  and  map  of  the  Federal 
territory."  Jefferson  then  distributed  the  responsibility  by  pre- 
scribing as  L'Enfant's  duty  "  to  draw  the  site  of  the  Federal 
town  and  buildings."  He  was  to  begin  at  the  Eastern  Branch 
and  proceed  upwards,  and  the  word  "  Tyber  "  is  used  thus  early 
in  the  history  of  the  city  as  applying  to  the  celebrated  creek  of 
that  name,  long  afterwards  the  eye-sore  of  the  city. 

As  between  the  immortal  patron  of  the  new  city  and  the  poor 
military  artist  posterity  will  expend  no  sympathies  upon  L'Enfant, 


34  PLANNING  THE  FEDERAL  CITY. 

but  there  was  probably  a  provincial  hardness  amongst  the  Com- 
missioners and  a  want  of  consideration  for  the  engineei-s,  for 
even  "  Ellicott,'''  also  a  man  of  uncommon  talents  in  his  way 
and  of  a  more  placid  temper,  was  incensed  at  the  slights  put 
upon  him. 

Jefferson  wrote  to  L'Enfant  Nov.  21, 1791,  that  he  must  not 
delay  the  engraving  of  his  map  by  over  nicety  and  thus  spoil 
the  sale  of  town  lots,  which  it  appears  brought  as  good  prices 
without  the  map  as  with  it ;  for  he  had  written  in  October  that 
''  the  sales  at  Georgetown  were  few  but  good."  They  averaged 
two  thousand  four  hundred  the  acre. 

The  Map  was  not  produced,  however,  and  his  appeals  over  the 
heads  of  the  Commissioners  on  points  of  difference  were  decided 
against  the  artist.  His  task  lasted  but  one  year  and  was 
abruptly  terminated  March  6th,  1792,  as  the  following  letter  of 
Jefferson  to  the  Commissioners  shows  : 

"  It  having  been  found  impracticable  to  employ  Major  L'Enfant 
about  the  Federal  City  in  that  degree  of  subordination  which 
was  lawful  and  proper,  he  has  been  notified  that  his  services 
are  at  an  end.  It  is  now  proper  that  he  should  receive  the 
reward  of  his  past  services  and  the  wish  that  he  should  have 
no  just  cause  of  discontent  suggests  that  it  should  be  liberal. 
The  President  thinks  of  two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars  or  three 
thousand  dollars,  but  leaves  the  determination  to  you.  Ellicott 
is  to  go  on  and  finish  laying  off  the  plan  on  the  ground  and  sur- 
veying and  plotting  the  district." 

L'Enfant's  reputation  and  acquaintance  were  such  that  he 
might  have  done  the  new  city  great  injury  by  taking  a  position 
to  its  detriment,  and  Washington  wrote  that  "  the  enemies  of 
the  enterprise  will  take  the  advantage  of  the  retirement  of 
L'Enfant  to  trumpet  the  whole  as  an  abortion."  It  appears, 
however,  that  L'Enfant  was  loyal  to  the  Government  and.  the 
city,  for  he  lived  on  the  site  and  in  the  neighborhood  all  his  days, 
and  several  times  afterwards  came  under  the  notice  of  the  exec- 
utive and  was  a  baffled  petitioner  before  Congress. 

We  hear  of  him  in  1794  in  the  public  employment  as  Engi- 


l'enfant's  BiOGRAPey.  ^5 

neer  at  Fort  Mifflin  below  Philadelphia  and  after  a  long  lapse 
as  declining  the  Professorship  of  Engineers  at  West  Point,  July, 
1812. 

Christian  Hines,  referred  to  elsewhere,  told  me  that  he  had 
seen  Major  L'Enfant  many  a  time  wearing  a  green  surtout  and 
never  appearing  in  a  change  of  clothes,  walking  across  the  com- 
moons  and  fields  followed  by  half  a  dozen  hunting  dogs.  Mr. 
Hines  reported  with  some  of  his  company  to  L'Enfant  at  Fort 
Washington  in  1814  to  do  duty,  and  that  officer,  who  was  in 
temporary  command,  filled  him  a  glass  of  wine  in  his  old  broadly 
hospitable  way  and  told  him  what  to  do. 

The  author  of  the  plan  x)f  the  city  led  a  long  and  melancholy 
career  about  Washington  and  died  on  the  farm  of  Mr.  Digges  in 
Prince  George's  County,  about  eight  miles  from  the  Capital  he 
planned.  The  Digges  family  were  allied  to  the  CarroUs  of  Dud- 
dington,  and  had  pity  upon  the  military  gentleman  who  had  been 


MAJOR  l'enfant's  RESTING  PLACE — THE  DIGGES   FARM. 

at  once  so  capable,  so  willful,  and  so  unfortunate.  The  banker 
Corcoran  has  a  distinct  remembrance  of  L'Enfant  as  he  lived,  a 
rather  seedy,  stylish  old  man  with  a  long  blue  coat  buttoned 
up  on  his  breast  and  a  bell-crowned  hat,  a  little  moody  and 
lonely  like  one  wronged.  He  wrote  much  and  left  many  papers 
which  Mr.  Wyeth  of  Washington  told  me  he  had  inspected. 
He  would  not  abate  a  particle  of  his  claim  against  the  Govern- 
ment, being  to  the  last  as  tenacious  of  the  point  of  pride  as  when 
he  refused  his  maps  to  the  Commissioners  to  be  tho  accessory 
of  the  auctioneer  and  the  lot  speculator.     The  Digges  farm  was 


86  PLANNING   THE    FEDERAL   CITY. 

purchased  by  the  banker,  George  K-iggs,  Esq.,  many  years  after 
L'Enfant's  death,  and  a  superb  stone  mansion  and  a  chapel  for 
worship  were  erected  upon  the  pleasant  hill  where  the  architect 
of  the  ruling  city  sleeps.  In  the  garden  planted  by  the  Digges 
family  there  had  been  one  of  those  private  burial  grounds  not 
uncommon  in  Maryland  and  quite  common  to  Catholic  families. 
Amongst  the  people  who  closed  his  eyes  he  was  laid  to  rest  in 
June,  1825,  at  tlie  age  of  seventy.  Mr.  Riggs  says  that  subse- 
quently a  member  of  the  Digges  family  committed  suicide  and  the 
negroes  buried  this  person  crosswise  to  L'Enfant's  body.  The 
leading  members  of  the  family  were  disinterred  afterward  and 
the  old  soldier  left  there  nearly  alone.  Some  measures  were 
suggested  for  giving  him  a  monument  at  the  time  I  made  these 
inquiries. 

L'Enfant's  judgment  was  not  equal  to  hi»  imagination,  but 
he  had  taste,  knowledge,  and  amplitude,  and  with  a  richer 
patron  than  the  American  Nation  might  have  made  a  more 
sounding  fame.  His  plan  of  the  Capital  City  is  gradually  vin- 
dicating itself  as  the  magnificent  distances  fill  up  with  buildings, 
and  the  recent  happy  expedient  of  parking  the  streets  has  made  it 
possible  to  pave  them  all  without  extraordinary  expense.  Sucli 
as  it  is,  the  city  is  irrevocably  a  part  of  his  fame.  One  cannot 
fail  to  see  that  he  drew  it  from  the  study  of  LeNotre's  work  in 
the  city  of  Versailles  and  in  the  forests  contiguous  to  Paris, 
where  aisles,  routes,  etc.,  meet  at  broad  open  carrefouro  and  a 
prospect  or  bit  of  architecture  closes  each  avenue.  Washing- 
ton city  in  its  grand  plan  is  French  ;  in  its  minor  plan  Quaker. 
It  is  the  city  of  Philadelphia  griddled  across  the  city  of  Ver- 
sailles. Anybody  who  will  look  at  the  design  of  the  house 
which  L' Enfant  built  for  Robert  Morris  at  Philadelphia  after  ho 
was  discharged  from  the  public  service, — that  house  which  so 
far  exceeded  the  estimates,  that  it  was  pulled  down  after  the 
ruin  of  Morris  and  the  materials  made  a  quarry  of — will 
observe  that  it  is  very  much  in  the  style  of  Mansard  and  the 
French  architects  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Thus  the  French 
alliance  with  America  brought  to  our  shores  the  draughtsman 


L  ENFANT  S   QUARRELS   WITH   THE   (\0MMISSIONERS.  37 

of  the  government  city,  and  few  men  have  had  it  in  their  power 
to  define  so  absokitely  a  stage  for  historical  and  biograpliical 
movement.  As  L'Enfant  made  the  city  it  remains,  with  little 
or  no  alteration.  And  his  misfortunes  and  poverty  contrasted 
with  his  noblo  opportunity  will  always  classify  him  Avith  the 
brotherhood  of  art  and  gon^s,  and  make  him  remembered  as 
long  as  the  city  shall  exist. 

The  first  quarrel  which  I/Enfant  had  with  the  commission- 
ers related  to  the  destructi<m  of  a  mansion  belonging  to  one  of 
the  proprietors  of  the  groundjthe  aged  Daniel  Carroll,  who  had 
begun  to  build  a  great  brick  house  which  he  called  "  Dudding- 
ton,"  in  the  middle  of  New  Jersey  Avenue  right  under  the 
Capitol.  As  tliis  house  embarrassed  the  engineer's  much 
beloved  plan  and  assumed  for  itself  the  importance  of  a  public 
edifice,  L'Enfant  issued  an  order  for  its  demolition.  The  com- 
missioners protested  but  the  artist  gave  orders  to  his  Lieuten- 
ant, Isaac  Roberdeau,  to  pull  down  the  structure  in  his  absence 
while  he  meantime  should  be  at  Acquia  Creek  -where  he  had 
leased  the  quarries  of  Brent  and  Gibson.  Roberdeau  was 
stopped  by  Carroll  who  sent  a  courier  to  Annapolis  to  get  an 
injunction,  but  seeing  the  speed  the  Frenchman  was  making  in 
the  interval  Carroll  served  a  local  magistrate's  warrant  upon 
him.  When  L'Enfant  returned  and  found  his  orders  unfulfilled 
he  quietly  organized  a  gang  of  laborers  and  in  the  evening  these 
set  to  work  and  reduced  the  presumptuous  edifice  with  a  hearty 
diligence  which  led  to  a  shower  of  complaints  from  both  pro- 
prietors and  commissioners.  Carroll  proposed  to  sue  L'Enfant ; 
Roberdeau  was  discharged  and  the  artist  in  chief  kept  his  place 
only  two  months  longer.  The  Administration  directed  Dud- 
dington  House  to  be  reconstructed  as  it  was  before  but  in 
another  spot,  and  there  it  remains  to-day,  a  grim  old  relic  sur- 
rounded with  a  high  brick  wall  and  a  park  of  forest  trees. 

Andrew  Ellicott,  the  consulting  and  practical  engineer  of  the 
new  city,  was  a  native  of  Bucks  county,  Pennsylvania,  where 
his  English  father  emigrated  in  1730.  He  and  two  brothers 
had  moved  from  Pennsylvania  in  wagons  in  1772  and  started 


88  PLANNING  THE    FEDERAL   CITY. 

the  town  of  Ellicott's  Mills  and  were  promoters  of  the  fortunes 
ot  Baltimore  and  enterprising  merchants,  manufacturers,  agri- 
culturists, and  inventors.  They  were  the  fathers  of  good  road 
building,  of  iron  rolling  and  copper  working  in  Maryland,  and 
inventors  of  many  useful  things,  such  as  the  wagon-brake. 
Andrew  EUicott  was  in  the  prime  of  life, — thirty-seven  years 
old, — when  he  rode  out  with  Washington  to  inspect  the  embryo 
city.  Of  all  the  party  he  was  the  most  intellectual  unless  we 
except  L'Enfant ;  for  although  a  Quaker  he  had  commanded  a 
battalion  of  militia  in  the  revolution,  and  it  gives  us  a  wonder- 
ing insight  into  the  resources  of  the  American  Colonial  mind 
to  find  that  this  companion  of  Franklin,  Rittenhouse,  and 
Washington  learned  the  elements  of  what  he  knew  at  the  little 
Maryland  milling  place  he  established. 

Ellicott  had  surveyed  portions  of  the  boundaries  of  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  and  Virginia,  executed  a  topographical  map  of 
the  country  bordering  on  Lake  Erie,  and  made  the  first  accurate 
measurement  of  Niagara  Falls.  He  had  besides  been  a  member 
of  the  Maryland  Legislature.  His  more  tractable  and  accom- 
modating disposition  secured  him  the  honor  of  finishing  the 
work  of  L'Enfant,  and  it  appears  that  he  was  paid  while  on  this 
service  five  dollars  a  day  and  his  expenses. 

In  1792  he  became  Surveyor  General  of  the  United  States, 
laid  out  the  towns  of  Erie,  Warren,  and  Franklin  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  constructed  Fort  Erie.  In  1796  he  determined  the 
boundary  line  separating  the  republic  from  the  Spanish  posses- 
sions, and  for  many  years  subsequently  was  Secretary  of  the 
Pennsylvania  state  land  office.  His  acquaintance  and  corre- 
spondence were  with  the  most  eminent  people  of  his  day  in 
America  and  Europe,  and  in  1812  he  was  made  Professor  of 
Mathematics  at  West  Point,  where  he  died  August  28,  1820,  at 
the  age  of  sixty-six.  One  of  his  family,  Mr.  Jos.  C.  G.  Kennedy 
was  Superintendent  of  the  United  States  census  in  1860,  and 
is  now  a  resident  of  Washington.  Amongst  the  assistants  to 
run  the  lines  of  the  new  city  was  one  man  entitled  to  the  future 
consideration  of  all  his*  race,  Benjamin   Banncker,  a  negro. 


PLA.NNING  THE    FEDERAL   CITY.  89 

He  was  at  this  time  sixty  years  of  age  and  a  native  of  Ellicott's 
Mills  and  the  proteg^  of  the  family  of  Andrew  EUicott.  He  is 
represented  to  have  been  a  large  man  of  noble  appearance 
with  venerable  white  hair,  wearing  a  coat  oi  super hne  drab 
broad  cloth  and  a  broad  brimmed  hat,  and  to  have  resembled 
Benjamin  Franklin.  He  was  honored  by  the  commissioners 
with  a  request  to  sit  at  their  table,  but  his  unobtrusive  nature 
made  him  prefer  a  separate  table.  He  was  not  only  consider- 
ately cared  for  by  these  gentlemen,  but  Mr.  Jefferson  with  his 
broad  encouragement  for  learning  and  ability  had  praised  an 
almanac  he  constructed,  and  the  black  man's  proficiency  in  the 
exact  sciences  had  given  him  a  general  reputation.  He  was 
sometimes  too  fond  of  a  glass,  but  made  it  a  matter  of  pride 
that  at  Washington  he  had  carefully  avoided  temptation. 
Banneker  died  in  1804,  and  his  grave  at  Ellicott's  Mills  is  with- 
out a  mark. 

Thus  much  for  the  makers  of  the  plan  of  the  city.  The  trials 
and  quarrels  of  the  architects  will  be  found  even  more  romantic. 

With  all  his  discouragements  concerning  it  Washington  kept 
up  the  gleam  of  belief  in  the  fortunes  of  his  namesake  city  and 
called  attention  to  it  in  letters  to  the  Earl  of  Buchan  and  his 
old  neighbor  Mrs.  S.  Fairfax.  To  the  latter,  who  was  in  England, 
he  wrote  the  year  before  his  decease  : 

"  A  century  hence,  if  this  country  keeps  united,  it  will  pro- 
duce a  city  though  not  as  large  as  London  yet  of  a  magnitude 
inferior  to  few  others  in  Europe." 

Three  quarters  of  that  century  have  expired  and  Washington 
is  a  city  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people.  By  the  year 
1900  this  should  increase  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand. 
At  the  time  Washington  wrote,  London  had  eight  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants. 


CHAPTER  lY. 


THE  ARCHITECTS  OF  THE  CAPITOL  AND  THEIR  FEUDS. 

The  first  architect  of  the  Capitol  in  the  proper  sense  of  a  pro- 
fessional man  was  Stephen  S.  Hallet,  whose  name  is  also  spelled 
Sallate.  About  this  gentleman,  whose  career  on  the  public 
buildings  was  very  brief,  no  recollections  and  scarcely  a  tra- 
dition prevails.  It  has  been  generally  said  that  he  was  an  Eng- 
lishman and  a  pupil  of  the  celebrated  John  Nash  of  London. 
It  is  a]3parent  however,  from  the  books  of  the  Commissioners, 
that  Hallet  was  a  Frenchman.  He  is  addressed  by  them  as 
Monsieur  Hallet  and  referred  to  by  them  as  a  French  artist. 
They  also  apologize  for  writing  him  a  letter  by  saying  that  the 
difficulty  of  making  explanations  between  themselves  and  him 
verbally  suggests  the  former  manner  of  communication.  Hal- 
let sent  his  plan  to  the  Commissioners  and  they  received  it  July 
17,  1792.  They  were  struck  with  the  evidences  of  his  profes- 
sional capacity,  and  invited  him  to  visit  the  spot  as  soon  as  he 
could.  These  were  the  old  Commissioners,  Johnson,  Stewart, 
and  Carroll.  It  appears  that  Hallet's  plans,  which  were  several 
in  number,  had  about  commended  him  as  the  author  of  the 
building,  and  he  was  employed  in  that  capacity  when  Dr.  Thorn- 
ton, an  Englishman,  also  presented  a  plan  which  the  Commiss- 
ioners requested  him  to  lodge  with  the  Secretary  of  State  at 
Philadelphia.  This  latter  plan,  although  drawn  by  an  amateur^ 
affected  both  Jefferson  and  Washington  to  such  a  degree  that  a 
letter  was  at  once  despatched  to  the  Commissioners  requesting 
them  to  adopt  it  and  to  substitute  it  for  Hallet's,  but  to  do  this 
with  as  much  delicacy  as  possible  and  to  retain  Hallet  in  the 
public  service.     This  peremptory  order  probably  gave  the  Com- 


ARCHITECTS   OF   THE   CAPITOL.  41 

missioncrs  much  relief  if  we  may  believe  the  statement  of  George 
Hadiield,  another  architect  who  wrote  twenty  years  later  to  the 
following  effect : 

"  A  premium  had  been  offered  of  five  hundred  dollars  and  a 
building  lot  for  the  best  design  for  a  Capitol,  at  a  time  when 
scarcely  a  professional  artist  was  to  be  found  in  any  part  of  the 
United  States ;  which  is  plainly  to  be  seen  from  the  pile  of 
trash  presented  as  designs." 

It  does  not  appear  that  Monsieur  Hallet  received  in  a  cordial 
way  this  assurance  that  an  English  amateur  had  made  a  supe- 
rior elevation  to  his  own,  and  he  drew  again  and  again  designs 
while  Thornton's  were  also  amended  after  the  foundations  of 
the  Capitol  had  been  raised  to  the  ground  level.  The  situation 
was  further  embarrassed  by  Thornton's  appointment  as  one  of 
the  Commissioners  where  he  came  into  conflict  with  his  prede- 
cessor in  an  administrative  as  well  as  a  professional  way.  Mr. 
Hallet,  in  deference  to  Jefferson's  suggestion,  was  employed  at 
four  hundred  pounds  per  year,  November  20, 1793-.  More  than 
nine  months  previously,  on  April  5,  1793,  the  Commissioners 
wrote  to  Thornton  :  '*  The  President  has  given  his  formal  appro- 
bation of  your  plan."  The  changes  in  Thornton's  design  were, 
however,  made  so  nearly  like  that  of  Hallet's,  particularly  as 
to  the  interior,  that  Monsieur  demurred  to  the  premium  being 
accorded  to  Doctor  Thornton.  Quarrels  ensued  and  Hallet 
withheld  his  drawings  and  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Commissioners 
June  28,  1794,  saying  :  "  I  claim  the  original  invention  of  the 
plan  now  executing  and  beg  leave  to  lay  hereafter  before  you 
and  the  President  the  proofs  of  my  right  to  it."  Thereupon 
the  Commissioners  demanded  the  plans  and  Monsieur  Hallet 
refused  to  surrender  them.  He  was  then  verbally  acquainted 
with  the  order  that  their  connection  with  him  had  ceased  and 
he  was  no  longer  in  the  public  service.  From  this  time  for- 
ward there  is  no  notable  mention  in  the  Commissioner's  books 
of  this  unfortunate  architect,  and  I  have  not  been  able  to  find 
any  traditions  respecting  him.  His  successor  was  George 
Hadfield,  who  continued  on  the  work  until  May  10, 1798.     Mr. 


42  ARCHITECTS   OF  THE  CAPITOL. 

Hallet's  account,  amounting  to  upwards  of  one  hundred  and 
seventy-six  pounds,  was  allowed  by  the  Commissioners. 

His  name,  however,  had  been  deposited  in  the  corner-stone 
as  one  of  the  architects,  and  subsequent  developments  have  in 
a  great  measure  vindicated  his  claim  as  a  principal  suggestor 
of  the  building.  About  seventy  years  after  his  disappearance 
from  the  public  view  a  son  of  B.  H.  Latrobe,  the  real  builder 
of  the  wings,  returned  to  Washington  Hallet's  drawings.  Mr. 
Clark  the  architect  passed  them  over  to  the  Librarian  of  Con- 
gress in  1873.  I  was  permitted  to  make  sketch  copies  of  Hal- 
let's plans,  and  Mr.  Clark  came  into  the  library  while  I  was 
drawing  from  these  plans  and  expressed  his  opinion  that  Hallet 
was  the  real  architect,  that  what  he  called  his  "  fanciful  plan  " 
had  been  borrowed  by  Thornton  and  changed  to  such  a  degree 
that  Hallet  was  overridden  in  the  premises.  He  called  my 
attention  to  this  memorandum  in  Hallet's  handwriting : 

"  A  grand  plan  accompanied  this  (elevation)  which  Dr.  Thorn- 
ton sent  forj  together  with  my  plan  in  pencil." 

On  another  drawing  the  following  memorandum  in  Hallet's 
handwriting  appeared : 

"  Sketch  of  the  groundwork  :  part  of  the  foundations  were 
laid  by  sometime  in  August,  1793,  now  useless  on  account  of  the 
alterations  since  introduced.  s.  hallet." 

Other  drawings  by  Mr.  Hallet  were  endorsed  as  follows  : 

"  The  ground  floor  of  a  i^lan  of  the  Capitol,  laid  before  the 
board  in  October,  1793." 

"  Plan  of  the  ground  and  principal  floor  sent  from  Philadel- 
phia to  the  board  in  July,  1793." 

Doctor  William  Thornton  came  to  America,  like  Alexander 
Hamilton,  from  the  West  India  Islands.  He  w^as  a  man  of  a 
good  deal  of  amateur  talent,  and  his  introduction  to  Jefferson 
brought  him  to  live  on  the  Capitol  site  where  he  remained  for 
the  remainder  of  his  days.  He  would  appear  to  have  been  of 
an  officious,  buoyant,  persevering  disposition,  and  after  he  was 
relieved  as  Commissioner  he  gathered  together  models  and  curl- 


WASHINGTON   ENDORSES   THORNTON'S   PLAN.  43 

osities  in  an  abandoned-  hotel  which  stood  on  the  site  of  tlie 
present  general  Post-office,  and  these  curiosities  were  spared  at 
his  intercession  from  the  British  incendiary  and  became  the 
nucleus  of  the  present  Patent  Office  collection,  of  which,  while 
nominal  clerk,  Thornton  was  really  the  first  Commissioner. 
He  was  also  the  founder  of  the  first  race  track  at  Washington, 
and  took  delight  in  blooded  horses,  entering  the  lists  with  the 
great  John  Tayloe,  the  chief  stock  breeder  and  the  richest  citi- 
zen of  the  District.  Dr.  Thornton  always  insisted  with  vehe- 
mence that  he  was  the  original  architect  of  the  Capitol,  and  no 
doubt  his  picture  of  the  elevations  brought  the  administration 
to  a  conclusion.  Jefferson  says  of  it :  "  The  grandeur,  sim- 
plicity, and  beauty  of  the  exterior,  the  propriety  with  which  the 
apartments  are  distributed  and  economy  in  the  mass  of  the 
whole  structure  recommended  this  plan."  The  next  day  he 
says  that  Thornton's  plan  has  captivated  the  eyes  and  judgment 
of  all.  "  It  is  simple,  noble,  beautiful,  excellently  distributed, 
and  moderate  in  size.  *  *  Among  its  admirersnooneis  more 
decided  than  he  whose  decision  is  most  important,"  meaning 
"Washington. 

Mr.  Jefferson,  at  the  time  above  referred  to,  was  held  in  great 
consideration  by  Washington.  He  had  been  stationed  at  the 
Court  of  Prance  and  was  known  to  have  a  fine  fancy  for  the 
arts  and  to  take  a  patron's  delight  in  the  legislative  edifices  of 
his  country.  We  can  get  an  idea  of  his  sentiments  on  art  from 
a  letter  which  he  wrote  April  10,  1791.     He  says: 

"  For  the  capitol  1  should  prefer  the  adoption  of  some  of  the 
models  of  antiquity,  which  have  had  the  approbation  of  thou- 
sands of  years — and  for  the  President's  House  I  should  prefer 
the  celebrated  fonts  of  modern  buildings." 

A  controversy  sprang  up  amongst  the  architects,  which  out- 
lived the  life  of  Washington,  and  Thornton  was  put  upon  the 
defensive.  In  1804,  Mr.  Latrobe  addressed  a  report  to  Con- 
gress in  which  he  denounced  Thornton's  plan  and  animadverted 
Avith  some  severity  upon  the  principle  of  competition  for  designs 
of  great  public  buildings,  saying  that  "  A  picture  "  was  not  a 


•     44  ARCHITECTS   OP   THE   CAPITOL. 

plan,  and  intimating  that  Thornton's  work  in  the  premises  was 
merely  pictorial.  To  this  Thornton  rejoined  in  a  pamphlet,  of 
which  a  copy  exists  in  the  Congressional  Library, — a  'purchase 
with  Mr.  Jefferson's  collection.     Thornton  says  : 

"  Mr.  Hallet  was  not  in  the  public  service  when  or  since  I 
was  appointed  commissioner,  which  was  on  the  twelfth  day  of 
September,  1794.  Mr.  Hadjield  was  appointed  to  superintend 
the  work  at  the  Capitol,  October  15,  1795."  Thornton  says 
further : 

"  Mr.  Hallet  changed  and  diminished  the  senate  room,  which 
is  now  too  small.  He  laid  square  the  foundation  at  the  centre 
building,  excluding  the  dome ;  and  when  General  Washington 
saw  the  extent  of  the  alterations  proposed  he  expressed  his 
disapprobation  in  a  style  of  such  warmth  as  his  dignity  and 
self-command  seldom  permitted.  *  *  *  Mr.  Hallet  was  desirous 
not  merely  of  altering  what  might  be  improved,  but  even  what 
was  most  approved.  He  made  some  judicious  alterations,  but 
in  other  instances  he  did  injury  *  *  *.  When  General  Wash- 
ington honored  me  with  the  appointment  of  commissioner  he 
requested  that  I  should  restore  the  building  to  a  correspondence 
with  the  original  plan." 

It  further  seems  that  Washington  addressed  the  commission- 
ers, Gustavus  Scott,  William  Thornton,  and  Alexander  White, 
February  27,  1797,  expressing  his  "  Real  satisfaction  with  their 
conduct,"  which  involved  an  endorsement  of  Thornton's  ideas. 

Mr.  Hallet's  first  design  for  the  capitol,  as  well  as  the  mod- 
ifications and  amendments  of  the  same,  show  that  he  was  an 
architect  of  very  perfect  knowledge.  Mr.  Clark,  as  we  have 
said,  the  architect  in  1873,  told  me  that  he  had  heard  that 
Hallet  was  a  pupil  of  Nash,  who  was  the  leading  English  arch- 
itect of  his  period.  Nash  was  born  in  London  in  1752,  and 
after  undergoing  a  course  of  training  in  his  profession  and 
practising  it  for  some  time,  withdrew  under  the  delusion  of 
speculation  and  lost  considerable  sums  of  money.  When  he 
returned  to  his  profession  he  met  with  very  great  success  and 
opened  an  oflice  in  London  in  1792.     He  designed  and  coii- 


HALLET,  THE  PUPIL  OP  NASH.  45 

structed  numerous  splendid  mansion  houses  for  ihe  nobility 
and  gentry  in  England  and  Ireland,  and  j^erformed  some  of  the 
most  celebrated  street  improvements  in  the  British  metropolis. 
He  was  an  inventor  as  well,  and  in  1797  obtahied  a  patent  for 
improvement  in  the  construction  of  ar'ches  and  piers  of  bridges, 
which  led  him  to  assume  the  credit  of  introducing  the  use  of 
cast-iron  girders.  His  work  in  London  has  been  quite  cele- 
brated, including  the  fashioning  of  Regent  Street  and  its  beau- 
tiful blocks,  the  Langham  Place  Church,  the  Haymarket 
Theater,  the  terraces  in  Regent's  Park,  and  the  pavilion  at 
Brighton.  England  contains  many  superb  interiors  and  impos- 
ing mansion-houses  accredited  to  him,  and  he  lived  until  1835. 

It  would  be  interesting  only  to  architects  to  go  at  length 
into  a  discussion  of  the  relative  cleverness  of  Thornton's  origi- 
nal plan,  of  Hallet's  plans  and  of  the  amended  Capitol  as  wo 
see  it  to-day,  the  work  of  Latrobe  and  Bulfinch.  The  building 
has  I'eceived  the  general  approval  of  the  public  sentiment,  and 
with  the  magnificent  marble  extensions  of  Mr.  Walter, — which 
arc  a  pattern  with  the  old  Capitol, — is  one  of  the  most  imposing 
buildings  in  the  world.  Thornton's  original  design  of  the 
Capitol  had  but  one  dome,  a  great  eagle  in  the  pediment,  a  statue 
wnth  a  club  on  the  top  of  the  pediment  flanked  by  two 
female  statues  on  the  balustrade,  and  oak  or  laurel  encom- 
passed  the   rounded  top  oi   the   chief  window  in  each  wing. 

The  original  plan  by  Hallet  placed  the  dome  outside  of  the 
rectangle  of  the  center  and  put  tlie  Senate  Chamber  in  that 
rotunda.  The  center  of  the  building  was  made  a  square  open 
court  with  a  covered  walk  around  the  sides  and  a  carriage  turn 
in  the  middle.  The  Supreme  Court  took  the  place  of  the 
subsequent  senate  chamber  and  the  Yice-President's  room  was 
semi-circular  and  facing  the  long  main  corridor  which  traversed 
the  edifice  lengthwise. 

It  would  appear  that  Hallet  was  in  Washington  until  Feb- 
ruary 22,  1795,  for  in  the  bunch  of  drawings  recently  consigned 
to  the  library  and  which  were  doubtless  sent  to  the  authorities 
bj  Hallet   to  prove  his  right  to  the  premium — there  is  one 


46 


ARCHITECTS   OF   THE   CAPITOL. 


"  A  fanciful  plan  and  elevation  which  the  President  having 
seen  accidentally  in  September,  1793,  agreed  with  the  com- 
missioners to  have  the  Capitol  planned  in  imitation  thereof." 


HALLET  S     PLAN    OF    THE    CAPITOL. 


Hallet's  "  Fanciful  plan  "  was  surmounted  by  a  dome  with 
drum  pillars  and  a  light  open  cupola.  Six  Doric  columns 
supported  the  center  which  upheld  a  curved  pediment  Avith  a 
large  eagle  in  the  tympanum,  and  below  were  four  standing 
colossal  figures  of  war,  peace,  justice,  and  time.  Three  col- 
umns flanked  the  portico,  which  had  four  doors  of  equal  size 
and  low  flights  of  steps.  Shallow  curtains  with  one  door  and 
one  window  connected  in  the  center  with  the  wings,  which 
consisted  of  a  basement  and  one  story.  The  basement  was  of 
stone  rusticated,  and  the  portico  above  had  four  Ionic  columns 
flanked  by  windows  flush  with  the  portico.  In  the  pediment 
of  each  of  the  wings  was  a  group  of  statuary  of  half  a  dozen 
figures,  representing  war  and  peace.  In  the  recess  under  the 
porticoes  were  three  designs  in  relief  over  the  three  doors  which 
opened  upon  the  portico.  Hallet's  "  Fanciful  plan  "  was  bor- 
rowed by  Thornton. 

We  may  congratulate  ourselves  that  the  present  state  of  the 
arts  and  the  unity  of  official  direction  in  this  country  prevent 
such  scandals  in  public  construction  as  attended  the  building  of 
the  old  Capitol.  It  does  not  appear  that  any  harmony  prevailed, 
and  dishonesty  was  often  charged  and  sometimes  proved.  The 
early  commissioners  accused  L'Enfant,  Roberdcau,  Baoroaf, 
and  others  of  circulating  on  the  spot  infamous  falsehoods  to 


cr 


THE   WAY   TO    HAVE   BUILT  THE   CAPITOL.  47 

the  prejudice  of  our  cliaracter.  Iladficld  says  that  unfavor- 
able reports  were  taken  to  General  Washington  of  Thornton's 
ground  plan,  and  he  was  ignorantly  advised  to  retain  the  eleva- 
tions and  change  the  interior  plans.  The  corner  stone  had 
no  sooner  been  laid  than  "  squabbles  began ;  differences,  factions 
and  broils  were  the  order  of  the  day.'*  The  contractor  for  the 
foundation  was  displaced  for  another  mason,  "  who  used  what 
is  called  the  continental  trowel,  which  was  wheelbarrows  filled 
promiscuously  with  stones  and  mortar  and  emptied  on  the 
walls.  When  the  foundation  was  completed  or  nearly  so,  the 
whole  was  condemned  and  the  second  contractor  or  continental 
trowelist  was  dismissed." 

It  is  very  certain  that  the  foundations  of  the  first  Capitol 
were  condemned  and  obliged  to  be  rebuilt.  After  the  first 
crop  of  commissioners  had  passed  away  it  was  found  that  at 
least  two  of  their  successors  were  short  in  their  accounts  or 
had  kept  no  responsible  accounts  whatever.  Mr.  Iladficld,  to 
whom  we  shall  come  directly,  who  resided  in  the  city  until  his 
death  and  lived  to  see  the  reconstruction  of  the  wings,  published 
at  the  time  a  dignified  criticism  upon  the  ediiice  with  these 
admissions : 

"  The  proper  way  to  have  built  the  Capitol  was  to  have 
offered  an  adequate  sum  to  the  most  eminent  architect  in  any  of 
the  European  cities,  to  furnish  the  design  and  working  drawings, 
also  a  person  of  his  own  choice  to  superintend  the  work.  In 
that  case  the  Capitol  would  have  been  long  ago  completed  and 
for  half  the  sum  that  has  been  expended  on  the  present  wreck." 

The  second  architect  in  order  is  Mr.  Hadfield,  an  Englishman 
who  had  been  requested  to  come  to  this  country  and  give  some 
responsibility  to  the  work  on  the  public  buildings.  He  received 
the  endorsement  of  that  undoubted  genius,  Latrobe,  who 
employed  him  between  1803  and  1817  after  the  commissioners 
had  cast  him  off,  and  he  bore  testimony  that  Hadfield  had 
"  talent,  taste,  and  knowledge  of  art."  Mr.  Hadfield  left  behind 
him  abiding  proofs  to  the  same  effect  in  the  City  Hall  and  in  the 
two   remaining   department   buildings  which  he    constructed 


48  ARCHITECTS   OF   THE   CAPITOL. 

"  Of  brick  in  the  Ionic  order  with  freestone  basements,"  two 
on  each  side  of  the  President's  house,  namely.  Treasury  and 
State,  War  and  Navy  buildings.  He  could  agree  with  the  com- 
missioners but  a  short  time,  one  of  whom  was  Thornton  afore- 
said, and  instead  of  discharging  Hadfield  courteously  it  appears 
by  their  minutes  that  on  May  10,  1798,  they  gave  notice  to  a 
citizen,  Mr.  William  Brent,  to  tell  Hadfield  that  he  was  no 
longer  in  their  employ.  Hadfield  died  in  Washington,  Feb- 
ruary, 1826.  His  successor  was  James  Hoban,  who  must  have 
then  lived  elsewhere,  probably  in  Maryland,  where  he  had 
married,  for  he  was  ordered  May  28,  1798,  to  superintend  the 
building  of  the  Capitol,  to  remove  to  the  city,  and  to  occupy 
Hadfield's  house,  or  if  he  did  not  get  it  to  charge  his  rent  in 
some  other  dwelling  to  the  Government. 

At  this  time  Hoban  was  architect  of  the  President's  house 
as  well  as  of  the  Capitol,  and  he  was  allowed  for  the  moment  to 
draw  his  full  salary  on  both  buildings.  He  received  a  hundred 
guineas  a  year  for  his  subsequent  attention  to  the  President's 
house.  Hoban  was  a  native  of  Kilkenny  County,  Ireland,  and 
was  educated  and  taught  the  profession  of  an  architect  at  Dub- 
lin. His  living  grand-son,  James  Hoban,  is  possessed  of  a  medal 
awarded  to  the  architect  by  the  Dublin  Society,  for  the  best  style 
of  ornamental  brackets.  In  1780,  Hoban,  still  unmarried,  sailed 
from  Ireland  to  Charleston,  S.  C.  where  he  settled  and  soon 
received  employment  on  the  public  and  private  constructions  of 
the  place.  South  Carolina  has  had  the  honor  of  furnishing 
two  architects  and  a  sculptor  to  Washington,  Hoban,  Robert 
Mills  and  Clark  Mills. 

At  the  conception  of  the  Capital  City,  Mr.  Laurens  (Henry 
Laurens,  long  a  State  captive  in  the  tower  of  London)  gave 
Hoban  a  letter  of  recommendation  to  Washington.  He  speed- 
ily drew  the  prize  for  the  President's  palace  and  was  employed 
to  construct  it,  which  he  did  with  equal  particularity,  stability, 
and  speed,  so  that  it  was  habitable  in  1799.  It  is  traditional 
in  the  Hoban  family  that  President  Washington  took  exception 
to  the  style  and  proportions  of  the  White  House  as  inviting 


HOBAN    VS.    DAVY   BURNS.  49 

criticism  from  severe  Republicans,  but  that  he  gave  up  the  point 
to  the  architect.  It  was  revived,  however,  by  Jefferson,  of 
whom  Tom  Moore,  Hoban's  poet  countryman,  wrote  in  1803 : 
*'  The  President's  House,  a  very  noble  structure,  is  by  no  means 
suited  to  the  philosophical  humility  of  its  present  possessor, 
vho  inhabits  but  a  corner  of  the  mansion  himself  and  abandons 
the  rest  to  a  state  of  uncleanly  desolation.  This  grand  edifice 
is  encircled  by  a  very  rude  paling  through  which  a  common 
rustic  hill  introduces  the  visitors  to  the  first  man  in  America." 
As  an  instance  of  the  boorish  feeling  prevailing  between  the 
€!ommissioners,  citizens,  and  architects,  we  may  mention  that 
David  Burns,  who  owned  a  large  part  of  the  ground  taken  up 
by  the  city,  resisted  the  opening  of  a  cartway  over  his  land  to 
haul  stone  from  the  landing  to  the  White  House,  and  also  threat- 
ened to  sue  the  Commissioners,  and  complained  of  Mr.  Hoban 
for  cutting  his  wood,  saying :  "  Such  persons  are  not  responsible, 
because  they  have  no  property  any  body  can  lay  hands  on,  but 
are  miserable  speculators  and  without  thrift."-  Mr.  Hoban 
built  the  first  post-office  at  Washington  and  many  other  good 
buildings,  but  he  also  failed  to  please  the  civil  authorities  although 
he  reconstructed  the  White  House  after  1814  and  maintained 
his  influence  in  the  city  to  the  end.  Captain  Hoban  died  in  the 
year  1831,  possessed  of  about  sixty  thousand  dollars  in  property, 
and  having  lived  a  comfortable  and  active  life.  He  was  at 
first  interred  in  the  old  graveyard  of  St.  Patrick's  Church,  but 
the  remains  were  removed  at  a  later  date  to  N.  Olivet  ceme- 
tery on  the  Bladensburg  turnpike,  where  they  lie  at  present. 
He  left  an  efficient  posterity,  two  sons  in  the  U.  S.  Navy,  another 
a  priest,  and  a  fourth,  James,  who  was  a  fine  Speaker  and  was 
United  States  Attorney  of  the  District  in  the  administration  of 
President  Polk.  Hoban's  residence  is  still  standing  at  this 
writing  on  F  street  in  the  rear  of  15th,  on  the  north  side,  a 
landmark  in  itself.  Sharp-gabled  and  very  decrepit,  and  point- 
ing toward  the  street.  He  married  after  he  removed  to  Wash- 
ington, and  his  wife  was  Miss  Seuell  of  Maryland.  He  was  a 
dfivout  Catholic,  and  those  who  most  distinctly  recall  him  at 

3 


50  ARCHITECTS   OP  THE   CAPITOL. 

this  day  arc  clergymen  like  Fathers  Lynch  and  McElroy. 
During  the  early  building  of  the  Capitol  the  clerk  of  the  works, 
Lenthall,  Blagden,  the  chief  stone  mason,  and  a  citizen,  Cocking, 
were  killed  upon  it.  The  stone  quarries  used  for  the  early 
public  edifices  were  at  Acquia  creek  and  at  Hamburg  near  the 
mouth  of  Rock  Creek,  the  latter  within  the  city  limits  ;  these 
quarries  for  stone  and  slate  were  purchased  outright  and  cost 
twenty-nine  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty-eight  dollars.  The 
since  celebrated  Seneca  stone  was  also  used  at  a  very  early 
period  for  flagging  and  steps ;  the  former  cost  about  seven  dol- 
lars a  ton  and  the  latter  about  fifteen  dollars,  delivered. 

The  fourth  professional  Architect  of  the  Capitol  was  one  of 
the  remarkable  men  of  the  country.  His  constructions  of  both 
a  public  and  private  character  are  numerous  at  Washington 
and  in  other  cities  of  the  country.  One  of  his  sons,  B.  H.  Latrobe, 
Jr.,  was  afterwards  made  engineer  of  location  and  construction 
of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railroad,  July  1,  1836.  He  was 
the  genius  of  that  great  mountain  highway.  He  had  been  edu- 
cated by  his  father,  the  architect,  for  a  lawyer,  but  took  to  engi- 
neering, while  his  brother  John  H.  B.  Latrobe,  educated  for  an 
engineer,  became  a  lawyer  of  Baltimore,  equally  celebrated. 
The  elder,  Benjamin  H.  Latrobe,  was  born  in  Yorkshire,  Eng- 
land, May  1,  1767,  and  was  the  son  of  Rev.  Henry  Latrobe,  a 
Moravian  clergyman  of  Huguenot  descent,  who  figured  as  Super- 
intendent of  the  Moravian  establishments  in  England  and  as  an 
author  in  the  Church.  The  architect  was  educated  at  a  village 
near  Leeds,  at  the  Moravian  school  of  Weisky  in  Saxony  and  at 
the  University  of  Leipsic.  He  was  a  cornet  of  Prussian  Hus- 
sars, and  made  the  tour  of  Europe,  examining  all  the  public 
buildings  of  note  before  he  returned  to  England  in  1782.  He 
entered  the  office  of  Cockrell,  an  eminent  English  architect, 
and  married  the  daughter  of  the  rector  of  Clerkenwell  par- 
ish. The  death  of  his  wife  gave  him  such  desire  of  change  that 
in  1796  he  resolved  to  come  to  America  and  visit  an  uncle, 
Colonel  Antes.  The  ship  brought  him  to  Norfolk  where  by 
good  luck  he  fell  in  with  the  officer  of  customs  who  introduced 


MARBLK    HALL,    CAPITOL,    WASHINGTON. 


Tb  R  a  R  y    -- 

OF  TBE 


BUILDING   THE   CAPITOL.  51 

him  to  Judge  Bushrod  Washington,  a  nephewof  President  Wash- 
ington, which  led  to  his  visiting  Mount  Yernon  and  becoming 
one  of  the  fast  young  friends  of  that  father  of  the  Capital. 

Richmond,  Virginia,  was  then  rapidly  growing,  and  Latrobe 
designed  the  penitentiary  and  several  fine  private  mansions. 
In  1798  he  was  established  in  Philadelphia  where  he  built  the 
old  water  works  on  Penn  square  and  the  old  Banks  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  Philadelphia,  and  he  also  designed  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  which  was  built  by  his  pupil,  Strickland.  It 
is  to  be  remarked  that  as  Latrobe  was  the  preceptor  of  Strick- 
land, Strickland  was  the  preceptor  of  Walter  and  Walter  of 
Clark.  As  Latrobe  availed  himself  of  the  services  of  Hadfield 
there  has  been  a  close  succession  of  minds  of  the  same  order 
and  of  mutual  inspiration  at  work  on  the  Capitol  for  eighty 
years.  Few  buildings  in  the  world  have  commanded  the  ser- 
vices for  so  long  a  time  of  men  who  knew  each  other. 

At  Philadelphia  Latrobe  married  his  second  wife,  the  daughter 
of  Robert  Hazelhurst,  who  had  been  a  partner  of  Robert  Norris, 
the  early  speculator  in  Washington  lots  and  buildings.  From 
this  second  marriage  arose  the  two  eminent  sons  above  referred 
to.  Mr.  Latrobe  was  summoned  from  Philadelphia  to  be  sur- 
veyor of  the  Public  buildings  at  Washington  in  1803.  He  made 
a  report  at  the  beginning  of  the  following  year  to  this  effect : 
"  The  hall  in  which  the  house  of  Representatives  are  now  assem- 
bled was  erected  in  part  of  the  permanent  building.  I  am,  how- 
ever, under  the  necessity  of  representing  to  you  that  the  whole 
of  the  masonry  from  the  very  foundation  is  of  such  bad  work- 
manship and  materials  that  it  would  have  been  dangerous  to 
have  assembled  within  the  building  had  not  the  walls  been 
strongly  supported  by  shores  from  without." 

After  due  inspection  Mr.  Latrobe  reported  that  the  south 
wing  of  the  Capitol  required  rebuilding,  from  the  very  founda- 
tion. He  also  resolved  upon  a  reformation  of  the  outer  plan 
and  a  very  thorough  change  of  the  inner.  This  led  to  the 
criticism  from  his  associate  Hadfield,  "  That  there  is  no  con- 
formity between  the  outer  parts  and  the  interior  of  the  Capitol, 


I  52  ARCHITECTS   OP  THE   CAPITOL. 

the  original  designs  having  been  totally  disregarded."  Partic- 
ularly  does  Hadfield  denounce  the  raising  of  the  entire  floor 
throughout  the  building  from  the  ground  story  to  the  principal 
order  over  the  casement,  excluding  the  light,  making  catacombs 
of  the  basement  and  turning  an  inferior  part  of  the  edifice  into 
the  superior  uses."  We  may  regard  the  east  front  and  wings 
of  the  old  freestone  Capitol  in  mass  as  "we  see  it  as  the  design, 
of  Mr.  Latrobe,  who  had  sufficient  influence  with  Mr.  Jefferson 
to  make  him  modify  his  extravagant  praise  of  Thornton's 
design.  The  embargo  and  non-intercourse  acts  of  that  admin- 
istration made  money  so  scarce  that  very  little  was  accom- 
plished beyond  finishing  the  interior  of  the  wings,  and  when 
the  Capitol  was  burnt  in  1814,  Latrobe,  who  was  then  absent  at 
Pittsburg  building  the  first  steamboat  to  descend  the  western 
waters  (jointly  with  Fulton,  Livingstone,  and  Nicholas  I.  Roose- 
velt, his  son-in-law  by  his  first  marriage)  hastened  back  to  the 
Capitol  and  took  charge  of  its  reconstruction  in  a  more  method- 
ical and  comprehensive  way  than  any  of  his  predecessors.  He 
first  made  an  inspection  of  the  mined  building  and  reported 
part  of  the  walls  and  all  the  foundations  sound  and  the  more 
delicate  work  of  the  interior  little  injured  although  the  incen- 
diaries had  labored  all  night  to  make  the  devastation  complete, 
using  powder,  etc.,  of  their  rockets  for  that  purpose.  It  was 
Latrobe  who  designed  what  Madison  called  the  American  order  of 
architecture,  using  the  cotton  blossom,  the  tobacco  leaf,  and 
the  Indian  corn,  shaft  and  ear,  in  his  columns  and  capitals. 
He  made  a  personal  visit  to  the  Catoctin  and  London  hills  to 
find  quarries,  and  discovered  the  breccia  or  blue  mottled  mar- 
ble which  is  used  in  the  old  hall  of  Representatives  and  in  the 
corridors.  The  hall  of  Representatives,  the  Senate  Cliamber, 
the  old  Supreme  Court  Room,  and  the  old  lobbies,  as  well  as  the 
ground  plan  of  the  two  wings,  were  Latrobe's  T^ork.  He  also 
erected  St.  John's  Church,  the  Van  Ness  and  Brentwood  man- 
sions, the  arched  gate  of  the  Navy  Yard,  and  was  conferred 
with  as  to  public  buildings  in  many  parts  of  the  country.  La- 
trobe had  been  on  good  terms  with  the  commissioners  fourteen 


LADIES     IlECErnON    ROOM,    CAPITOL,    WASIIlXdTOX. 


THE   FIFTH   ARCHITECT   OP   THE    CAPITOL.  53 

years  when  President  Monroe  appointed  a  one-armed  Virginia 
Colonel,  Samuel  S.  Lane,  with  whom  he  soon  came  into  collis- 
ion, and  he  resigned  in  1817.  Removing  to  Baltimore  he  built 
the  noted  Cathedral  there  and  a  part  of  the  Commercial 
Exchange.  His  son,  Henry  S.  Latrobe,  had  been  sent  to 
New  Orleans  to  build  the  water  works  in  1811  and  died  there 
in  1817.  Following  him  upon  the  same  errand,  the  architect  of 
the  Capitol  met  with  the  same  fate  September  3,  1820. 

Mr.  Latrobe  has  left  behind  him  letters,  compositions,  con- 
structions, and  a  posterity  which  will  give  him  a  permanent 
fame  in  the  Republic.  He  was  well  acquainted  with  the  Latin, 
Greek,  Hebrew,  French,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  Italian,  and  Ger- 
man languages. 

The  fifth  architect  on  the  Capitol  was  Charles  Bulfinch,  the 
senior  of  Latrobe,  who  had  been  born  in  Boston,  August  8, 1763, 
the  son  of  a  physician.  He  saw  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill 
from  the  housetops  of  the  city,  and  graduated  at  Harvard  in 
1781.  Finding  life  in  a  country  house  distasteful  he  made  the 
tour  of  Europe  to  further  his  desire  to  be  an  architect,  and 
returning  to  Boston — he  -married  his  cousin,  Hannah  Apthorp, 
and  became  at  tlie  same  time  a  constructor,  merchant,  and 
selectman.  It  was  he  who  laid  out  the  streets  and  filled  up 
the  marshes  of  Boston,  built  the  Boston  State  House,  and  was 
one  of  the  partners  to  dispatch  the  ships  Columbia  and  Wash- 
ington to  the  Pacific  Ocean  whereby  Captain  Gray  discovered 
the  Columbia  River.  He  twice  failed  in  business,  once  by 
putting  up  Franklin  Place,  Boston,  on  too  ambitious  a  scale, 
and  again  by  the  endeavor  to  fill  up  the  Charles  River  marshes. 
His  work  is  plentiful  in  Boston,  as  in  the  Court  House  and  the 
North  and  South  Churches.  He  also  built  the  State  House  at 
Augusta,  Me. 

Bulfinch  made  the  acquaintance  of  President-elect  Monroe 
in  1816.  At  this  time  he  was  a  lame  man,  having  crippled 
himself  for  life  by  slipping  on  the  steps  of  Fanueil  Hall,  and  he 
was  visiting  Washington  and  other  cities  to  obtain  suggestions 
for  a  hospital  for   Boston.     President  Monroe  renewed  the 


%4  ARCHITECTS  OP  THE  CAPITOL. 

acquaintance  while  making  a  tour  in  the  East  subsequently, 
and  was  struck  with  the  elegance  of  Bulfinch's  buildings.  The 
architect  refused  to  take  Latrobe's  place  until  the  latter  had 
resigned  absolutely,  and  tlien  he  proceeded  to  complete  the  wings 
on  Latrobe's  plan  and  to  build  the  rotunda,  old  dome,  and 
library,  and  to  give  area  to  the  west  front  of  the  Capitol,  which 
had  been  built  too  near  the  brow  of  the  hill,  by  putting  up  the 
glacies  and  architectural  terrace.  In  1830  when  the  Capitol 
was  virtually  completed,  Bulfinch  resigned  and  returned  to 
Boston,  where  he  died  April  15, 1844,  at  the  age  of  eighty-one. 
He  built  two  other  buildings  at  Washington,  the  church  for 
the  Unitarian  Society  of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  the  old 
penitentiary  at  Greenleaf  s  Point,  where  the  conspirators  were 
imprisoned^  tried,  and  hanged  in  1865. 

The  criticism  of  Hadfield,  already  twice  referred  to,  was  writ- 
ten in  1819  in  the  period  of  Bulfinch.  That  artist  throws  some 
light  upon  the  cost  and  style  of  the  edifice.  He  begins  by 
calling  it  "  A  very  singular  building,"  ascended  by  "  uncouth 
stairs  in  the  south  wing."  The  plan  of  the  Representatives 
Hall,  he  says,  was  taken  from  the  remains  of  a  theater  near 
Athens  as  described  by  Stewart,  an  authority.  It  had  gained 
"  some  advantage  in  appearance  of  form  and  costliness  of 
materials  "  over  the  former  hall,  which  was,  however,  more 
consistent,  being  all  of  native  freestone.  The  capitals  of  the 
columns  in  this  hall  were  executed  in  Italy"  and  are  a 
copy  from  the  capitals  of  the  well-known  remains  of  the  lantern 
of  Demosthenes  at  Athens.  Had  the  entire  columns  been  in 
Carrara  marble  they  would  have  cost  less  money.  Hadfield 
rebukes  the  coupling  of  the  form  center  columns,  the  screen 
between  the  columns  of  the  peristyle,  the  gallery  door,  and  the 
principal  entrance  crowding  each  other,  and  the  screen  of 
columns  on  the  south  side  of  the  hall,  which  "  would  be  better 
among  the  ruins  of  Palmyra." 

Such  criticisms  as  Hadfield's  lose  their  effect  upon  the 
public  mind  by  their  minuteness.  The  building  stood  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century  complete  as  Bulfinch  left  it,  and  meantime 


HOUSE    OF    REPRESENTATIVES,    CAPITOL,    WASHINQTOX. 


PROPOSED    CHANGES   IN  THE   CAPITOL.  55 

persons  of  every  quality  from  all  parts  of  the  world  bestowed 
their  encomiums  upon  it.  For  many  years  a  contest  raged 
about  the  difficulty  of  hearing  in  that  ambitious  domed,  column- 
encircled  Hall  of  Representatives,  but  no  portion  of  the  building 
is  more  admired  to-day,  and  perhaps  people  of  'wisest  censure 
prefer  the  involutions,  quaint  workmanship,  economy  of  space, 
and  classical  simplicity  of  the  old  freestone  building  to  the 
marble  wings  which  are  modeled  upon  the  former  plan. 

The  old  Capitol,  including  the  works  of  art  which  belonged 
there,  cost  about  two  million  seven  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
It  covered  considerably  more  than  an  acre  and  a  half  of  ground. 
It  was  three  hundred  and  fifty-two  feet,  four  inches  long,  seventy 
feet  high  to  the  top  of  the  balustrade,  one  hundred  and  forty- 
five  feet  high  to  the  top  of  the  old  dome,  and  the  wings  were 
one  hundred  and  twenty-one  feet,  six  inches  deep.  These  dimen- 
sions show  a  sufficient  edifice  for  the  period  to  have  been  truly 
a  national  Capitol.  The  part  which  the  British  burnt  had  cost 
about  seven  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  dollars ;  to  restore 
those  parts  cost  about  six  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  dollars  ; 
the  freestone  center  cost  about  six  hundred  and  ninety  thousand 
dollars.  The  park  enclosing  this  old  Capitol  contained  about 
twenty-two  and  a  half  acres. 

Within  that  old  building  happened  all  the  contests  of  the 
first  social  civilization  of  the  Republic.  Every  room  and  lobby 
and  recess  of  it  is  full  of  reminiscence.  Attempts  are  now 
being  made  on  the  score  of  architectural  harmony  to  demolish 
it  and  erect  a  new  center  in  keeping  with  the  wings.  We  may 
hope  that  this  will  not  take  place  until  reverence  and  innova- 
tion, the  historical  and  the  artistic  spirit,  have  a  full  debate  on 
the  subject  in  which  the  country  can  take  sides. 

The  successor  of  Mr.  Bulfinch  was  Robert  Mills,  who  was 
appointed  government  architect  by  Andrew  Jackson  in  1830. 
He  was  a  man  of  mediocre  talents,  whose  opportunities  allowed 
him  to  impress  himself  favorably  upon  the  country.  He  was 
born  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  and  placed  under  the  tuition  of 
James  Hobaii  in  1800,  with  whom  he  remained  two  years.     Mr. 


§5G  ARCHITECTS   OF   THE    CAPITOL. 

Jefferson  introduced  him  to  Latrobe.  He  had  very  extensive 
employment  in  tlie  country,  and  constructed  churches,  public 
buildings,  and  mansions  from  Pennsylvania  to  Georgia ;  he  built 
the  second  Treasury,  of  which  the  facade  remains,  and  com- 
menced the  Patent  Office  and  the  general  Post-Office,  all  three 
of  which  retain  the  impression  of  his  style.  He  designed  the 
Washington  Monument,  made  a  design  for  the  Bunker  Hill 
Monument,  built  the  Monument  Church  at  Richmond,  the  State 
Capitol  at  Harrisburgh,  the  Philadelphia  Mint,  and  was  the 
engineer  of  South  Carolina  when  the  Charleston  and  Hamburg 
Railroad  was  constructed  between  1830  and  1834.  Mr.  Mills 
completed  Bulfinch's  work  on  the  Capitol  but  got  into  a  wrangle 
about  the  Patent  Office  which  led  to  his  removal.  He  long 
inhabited  a  tall  brick  house  on  New  Jersey  Avenue,  Capitol 
Hill,  and  died  in  Washington,  March  3,  1855.  Mr.  Mills  had 
very  little  connection  with  the  Capitol  building,  and  for  twenty 
years  after  its  completion  there  was  notliing  more  of  architect- 
ure except  a  wrangle  about  the  acoustics  of  the  Hall  of  Congress. 

New  states  were,  however,  admitted  to  the  Union,  and  the 
increase  of  population  in  all  the  states  multiplied  Congressmen 
so  that  in  1850  it  was  determined  to  extend  the  old  wings  by 
greater  wings  named  "  extensions,"  to  be  constructed  of  more 
durable  materials  and  upon  the  original  plan.  Proposals  were 
invited  and  the  fortunate  architect  was  Thomas  W.  Walter. 

He  held  and  keeps  the  rank  of  the  foremost  classical  archi- 
tect in  America.  The  corner-stone  of  the  additions  was  laid 
by  President  Filmore,  July  4,  1851,  more  than  fifty-nine  years 
after  Washington  laid  the  south-east  corner  stone  of  the  old 
Capitol.  Mr.  Walter  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  September  4, 
1804,  and  was  the  son  of  a  builder.  In  1819  he  entered  the 
office  of  Mr.  Stricklandand,  working  with  the  trowel,  supported 
himself  and  became  a  fair  artist  in  colors.  In  1830  he  became 
an  architect  on  his  own  account  and  the  following  year  designed 
Moyamensing  Prison.  His  plans  -  for  Girard  College  were 
accepted,  and  from  1833  to  1847  he  superintended  its  construc- 
tion, visiting  Europe  in  1838  to  make  studies  for  that  institution. 


SENATE    CHAMBKK,    CAPITOL.    WASHIXGTOX. 


COST   OF    THE   CAPITOL.  57 

In  1843  the  Yenezuelan  Government  employed  liira  to  con- 
struct a  mole  and  port  at  LaGuayra,  and  from  1851  to  1865 
he  was  the  architect  of  the  Capitol  and  had  an  influence  in  the 
Treasury,  Patent  Office,  and  Post-Office  extensions.  Mr.  Walter 
was  accused  of  influencing  contracts  on  the  public  works 
in  Washington,  and  the  disposition  of  funds  on  the  Capitol  build- 
ing was  mainly  committed  to  an  able  engineer  officer,  Mont- 
gomery C.  Meigs. 

The  first  estimate  for  the  Capitol  extension  was  two  million 
six  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  and  five  years  time. 
In  1856  Captain  Meigs  called  upon  Jefferson  Davis  for  two  mil- 
lion eight  hundred  and  thirty-five  thousand  dollars  and  said  that 
the  additional  cost  was  on  account  of  the  low  estimates  of  Mr. 
Walter  and  in  the  substitution  of  marble,  iron,  encaustic  tiles, 
etc.,  for  wood,  plaster,  and  stone.  And  he  added :  "  I  have 
labored  faithfully  and  diligently  to  construct  this  building  in 
such  a  manner  that  it  would  last  for  ages  as  a  creditable  monu- 
ment of  the  state  of  the  arts  at  this  time  in  -this  country." 
At  that  time  the  expenditure  was  about  ninety  thousand 
dollars  monthly. 

Captain  M.  C.  Meigs  reported  in  August,  1856,  that  above 
two  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  had  been  expended 
on  the  new  wings  up  to  that  time,  that  the  work  had  no  debts, 
and  that  everything  had  been  bought  for  cash.  The  Berkshire 
marble  shafts,  monolitho,  cost  one  thousand  four  hundred  dol- 
lars each,  and  the  shafts  for  the  corridors  of  the  south  basement 
two  hundred  dollars  each.  The  following  were  the  prices  of 
marbles  per  cubic  foot.  IMassachusetts,  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents ; 
Tennesee,  six  dollars ;  Vermont  Green,  seven  dollars  ;  Potomac 
Breccia,  four  dollars ;  Levant  from  Barbary,  five  dollars  ;  Italian 
Statuary,  seven  dollars  and  ninety-five  cents;  Common  Italian, 
two  dollars  and  seventy-five  cents.  Meigs  changed  Walters' 
design  somewhat,  putting  in  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  columns 
in  all  instead  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-two.  Bricks,  from  all 
cities,  cost  from  five  dollars  and  fifty  cents  to  nine  dollars  and 


^8  ARCHITECTS  OP  THE   CAPITOL. 

twelve  cents  per  thousand.     To  lay  the  bricks  cost  five  dollars 
and  eight  cents  per  thousand. 

The  cost  of  the  Capitol  extension  was  about  eight  million  dol- 
lars, of  the  new  dome  about  one  million  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars,  and  of  the  new  library  enough  additional  to 
make  the  entire  cost  upwards  of  ten  million  dollars.  Works 
of  art  and  ornaments  made  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars more.  The  extensions  are  about  one  hundred  and  forty-three 
by  two  hundred  and  thirty-nine  feet  each  exclusive  of  porticoes. 
The  whole  Capitol  has  therefore  cost  about  thirteen  million 
dollars. 


LOBBY    OF    SENATE,    CAPITOL,    WASHINGTON. 


CHAPTER  Y. 


THE   LOBBY  AND   ITS   GENTRY.    ' 

The  word  "  Lobbyist,"  as  any  body  might  guess,  is  derived 
from  the  part  of  the  Capitol  where  people  go,  who  have  objects 
to  attain  on  the  floors  of  Congress  but.  not  the  right  of  access. 
In  the  Latin  lohhy  signifies  a  covered  portico-pit  for  walking, 
and  in  the  Capitol  at  Washington  the  lobbies  are  long,  lofty, 
and  lighted  corridors  completely  enclosing  both  halls  of  legis- 
lation. One  of  the  four  sides  of  this  Lobby  is  guarded  by  door- 
keepers who  can  generally  be  seduced  by  good  treatment  or  a 
douceur  to  admit  people  to  its  privacy,  and  in  this  darkened 
corridor  the  lobbyists  call  out  their  members  and  make  their 
solicitations. 

The  lobby  at  "Washington  is  referred  to  by  the  architect 
Latrobe  as  early  as  1806.  He  explains  that  "  The  Lobby  of  the 
House  is  so  separated  from  it  that  those  who  retire  to  it  cannot 
see  and  probably  will  not  distinctly  hear  what  is  going  forward 
in  it.  This  arrangement,  he  says,  "  has  been  made  with  the 
approbation  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  also 
under  the  advice  of  the  speakers  of  the  two  houses  at  the  time 
when  the  designs  were  made.  It  is  novel,  but  it  is  supposed 
that  the  inconveniences  to  which  the  Lobby  now  subjects  the 
House  will  be  thereby  avoided." 

This  shows  the  high  antiquity  of  the  Washington  Lobby. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  many  of  my  readers  may  be  asking 
themselves,  what  kind  of  a  fellow  is  a  lobbyist  to  look  at  ? 

A  lobbyist  is  an  operator  upon  his  acquaintance,  his  wits, 
and  his  audacity.  Your  lobbyist  may  be  an  old  man,  whose 
experience,  a  plomh^  suavity  or  venerableness  may  recommend 


60  THE  LOBBY  AND  ITS  GENTRY. 

him.  He  may  be  a  strong  man  in  middle  life,  who  commands 
what  lie  is  paid  for  doing  by  a  knowledge  of  his  own  force  and 
magnetism.  He  may  be  an  adroit  young  man,  full  of  hollow 
profession,  who  dexterously  leads  his  \ictim  along  from  ter- 
race to  terrace  of  sentimentality,  until  that  dell  is  reached 
where  the  two  men  become  confederates,  and  may  whisper  the 
truth  to  each  other.  • 

The  average  lobbyist  must  seem  an  agreeable  man,  whether 
ho  be  so  or  no.  He  is  seldom  so  foolish  as  to  risk  a  quarrel 
for  no  end,  and  therefore  a  newspaper-writer  can  readily 
approach  him  and  lejirn  the  news, — there  being  a  tacit  truce 
understood  between  them,  by  which  the  writer  gets  his  news 
on  the  understanding  that  hs  will  give  trouble,  in  the  way  of 
revelations,  to  none  less  than  the  lobbyist's  principals.  The 
native  lobbyist  rather  likes  to  read  quick-witted  accounts  of 
such  operations  as  he  is  about,  and,  if  somebody  in  his  own 
line  other  than  himself,  be  described,  enjoys  the  matter  hugely. 

I  recollect,  on  one  occasion,  having  it  suggested  to  me  that 
a  sketch  on  the  game  of  poker  as  played  at  Washington  might 
incidentally  trench  upon  a  character  of  lobby  influence  not  gen- 
erally understood.  The  intimation  that  I  received  was,  that 
certain  prominent  men  in  Congress  and  the  government  were 
very  fond  of  the  Western  game  of  draw-poker  ;  and  that  certain 
gentlemen  in  the  Lobby,  knowing  this  fact,  humored  the  incli- 
nation, and  played  a  losing  game  with  the  aforesaid  dignita- 
ries, in  order  that  the  acquaintance  might  be  closer,  and  the 
legislative  business  in  hand  easy  to  approach.  It  is  well  estab- 
lished that,  if  you  can  deceive  a  man  into  believing  that  he  has 
•  plundered  you  at  cards,  he  feels  under  a  sort  of  chivalric  obli- 
gation ;  and  hence  a  strong  lob])yist  will  permit  himself  to  lose 
heavily  at  the  poker-table,  under  the  assumption  that  the  great 
Congressman  who  wins  the  stake  will  look  leniently  upon  the 
little  appropriation  he  means  to  ask  for.  As  the  appropriation 
is  sure  to  be  twenty-fold  the  loss  at  cards,  it  is  plain  that  the 
loser  really  plays  the  best  game  at  poker. 

On  this  occasion,  I  went  directly  to  a  couple  of  fellows  whom 


THE   AVERAGK   LOBBYIST.  61 

I  knew  to  be  prime  hands  at  the  draw  game,  and  stated  to  them 
that  I  could  not  play  poker,  and  wanted  to  get  an  idea  of  it 
sans  experience,  and  also  some  points  with  which  to  point  my 
article.  Both  men  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  proposition, 
and  while  one  sat  down,  with  a  mischievous  twinkle  in  his  eye, 
and  gave  me  some  inside  information,  the  other  slipped  off 
and  bought  a  book  called  "  The  American  Hoyle,"  which  he 
sent  to  me  under  the  frank  of  the  very  member  of  Congress 
who  was  to  be  the  subject  of  the  article. 

Amongst  the  lobbyists  at  Washington,  is  one  very  agreeable, 
well-behaved,  and  most  learned  man,  who  is  on  excellent  terms 
with  some  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  judges,  senators,  etc., 
at  the  Capital.  He  formerly  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  a  part- 
nership-at-law,  and  in  a  distant  state  was  quite  an  influence  in 
politics  and  at  the  bar.  I  believe  that  an  unfortunate  streak 
of  luck  came  to  him  in  the  course  of  his  practice,  by  which  he 
was  able,  upon  a  speculation,  involving  some  legislative  proceed- 
ings, to  make  very  much  more  money  in  a  short  space  of  time 
than  he  could  do  in  a  year  or  two  by  methodical  practice. 
Whatever  the  cause,  he  slipped  his  moorings  as  a  fair  lawyer, 
and  took  to  the  legislature  every  winter,  but  never  in  support 
of  any  small  matter.  His  propositions  were  all  imperial,  and 
to  hear  him  talk  you  would  think  his  ends  were  his  country's, 
his  God's,  and  truth's.  He  had  a  fine  way  of  talking  about 
"■  The  equities,"  which  he  explained  to  be  something  superior 
in  morals  to  mere  points  of  law  and  evidence  ;  and,  with  his 
fine  grave  face,  suave  manner,  and  enormous  determination, 
he  never  failed  to  be  respectable,  and  I  always  wondered  how 
he  ever  could  fail.  Yet  he  always  did  fail,  that  is,  he  could 
inspire  sufficient  confidence  in  those  who  backed  him  with 
money  to  be  kept  at  Washington  from  year  to  year  at  their 
expense,  but  his  proposals  were  so  preposterous  ki  the  amount 
asked,  that  nobody  dared  to  vote  for  them. 

On  one  occasion  I  was  bound  to  New  York,  when  this  gentle- 
man was  discovered  to  have  the  adjacent  berth  to  mine,  and  to 
be  my  companion  in  those  agreeable  hours  one  spends  sitting 


•   62 


THE   LOBBY   AND   ITS   GENTRY. 


up  until  the  berth  shall  be  made,  the  lights  put  down,  and  the 
last  passenger  turned  in.  I  was  but  imperfectly  aware  of  his 
business  at  Washington,  where  he  had  always  addressed  me 
respectfully,  and  with  a  lazy  man's  privilege,  I  turned  to  him 
more  unguardedly  than  on  previous  occasions,  and  soon  found 
myself  under  the  glamour  of  a  very  remarkable  mind.  He  had 
spent  much  of  his  life  in  a  distant  part  of  the  country,  among 
associations  interesting  in  themselves,  and  the  grade  of  his 
acquaintances  was  high,  and  often  eminent.  He  was  President- 
making  on  this  particular  evening,  and  called  my  attention  to 
the  force,  record,  and  consistency  of  some  gentlemen  whom  I 
had  never  thought  of  in  association  with  the  Chief  Magistracy. 
As  he  proceeded  in  his  talk,  I  felt  a  luminous  mind  near  me  as 
truly  as  .if  I  had  been  sitting  under  some  shining  orb.  His  lit- 
erary tastes  were  just  crude  enough  to  be  original  and  honest. 
His  acquaintance  with  men  was  that  of  one  who  never  took  a 
suggestion  but  he  gave  one  back  like  an  equal.  There  was 
bearing  in  the  man  also,  and  that  feeling  of  warm  interest  in 
my  youth  which  had  the  effect  to  make  me  feel  that  there  was 
something  to  pity  in  my  associate.  Without  any  clear  knowl- 
edge that  he  had  ever  been  wronged,  I  got  to  feel  that  his  desert 
had  been  unequal  to  his  aspiration,  and  imperceptibly  the 
impression  was  made  upon  me  that  he  had  lost  his  grasp  upon 
fortune  by  too  much  courage,  rather  than  by  the  abandonment 
of  his  friends ;  for,  like  every  man  in  the  Lobby,  as  I  afterwards 
found  out,  he  placed  much  stress  upon  personal  fidelity.  You 
never  find  a  genuine  lobbyist  but  he  makes  it  a  point  of  honor 
that  friendship  is  the  last  manly  element  to  be  given  up,  and  I 
suppose  that  this  is  an  approximate  notion  to  that  older  relation 
we  express  when  we  say  that  there  is  honor  among  thieves. 
At  Washington  one  hears  much  more  of  loyalty  to  one's  friends 
than  of  loyalty  to  one's  country.  In  fact,  one  would  soon  become 
unpopular  in  that  promiscuous  society  by  affecting  any  undue 
or  juvenile  consideration  for  his  country.  They  expect  John 
A.  Bingham,  or  Daniel  Yoorliees,  or  some  of  the  professional 
orators,  to  attend  to  that  kind  of  sentiment  exclusively. 


A   SPECIMEN   LOBBYIST.  63 

Time  ran  on,  and  I  discovered  what  my  quondam  companion 
of  the  sleeping-car  was  working  his  brain  upon  during  the  pend- 
ing session.  He  had  a  fine  scheme,  based  upon  the  nicest  prin- 
ciples of  equity,  to  take  sixty  million  dollars  out  of  the  Treas- 
ury to  refund  the  cotton  tax.  I  have" never  been  able  to  per- 
suade myself  that  he  did  not  believe  he  was  engaged  in  a  highly 
meritorious  duty  in  seeking  to  have  that  cotton-tax  taken  out 
of  the  Treasury  and  refunded,  because,  as  he  expressed  it,  the 
Supreme  Court  had  been  equally  divided  on  the  subject,  and 
would  certainly  have  made  a  decision  as  he  argued  it,  except 
that  two  unjudicial  Justices  had  been  added  to  the  Bench  to 
anticipate  certain  railway  decisions,  and  were  not  to  be  relied 
upon  when  a  fine  point  of  law  and  honor  came  up.  The  sixty 
million  dollars  were  not  to  be  grossly  shoveled  out  of  the  Treas- 
ury, for  my  friend  was  no  such  gross  disturber  of  the  revenues 
and  the  tax-scale.  Like  every  other  lobbyist,  he  preferred  the 
pleasant  form  of  a  bonded  restitution. 

The  Treasury  was  merely  to  listen  to  the  courts,  as  the  courts 
were  merely  to  do  justice  to  a  war-ridden  people.  If  the  courts 
should  be  so  lost  to  judicial  integrity  as  to  slip  the  matter  over 
from  term  to  term,  he  did  not  entertain  the  supposition  that  a 
Congress  of  his  countrymen  would  be  equally  tardy  in  doing 
their  duty.  "When  this  Congress  had  shown,  in  a  chivalric  way, 
its  origin  with  the  constituency,  and  its  respect  for  law  and 
"  equity,"  by  passing  the  little  bill  which  he  proposed,  nothing 
else  was  necessary  than  for  the  Treasury  to  issue  sixty  million 
dollars  of  bonds,  redeemable  in  forty  years,  with  the  proper 
coupons  attached.  Having  your  coupons  attached,  you,  as  a 
friend  of  the  outraged  planter,  were  merely  to  collect  the  inter- 
est annually ;  and  here  my  friend  was  wont  to  stop  and  say,  with 
a  look  which  was  as  impressive  as  Chevalier  Bayard's  :  "  What 
is  interest  at  seven  per  cent  to  a  nation  like  ours,  which  owes  so 
much  to  the  cotton  interest  ?" 

You  can  see  it  all  in  a  twinkling.  The  whole  thing  involved 
but  four  million  or  so  per  annum  ;  while,  meantime,  with  his 
three  cents  per  pound  on  cotton  refunded  to  him,  the  planter 


64  THE  LOBBY   AND   ITS   GENTRY. 

would  take  new  heart,  believe  again  in  the  generosity  of  the 
country,  put  this  annual  amount  into  gins,  seed,  and  labor, 
and  push  the  country  so  far  ahead  that,  when  the  bonds  came 
due  at  the  end  of  forty  years,  so  far  from  anything  being  lost, 
there  would  only  be  a  magnificent  investment  on  all  sides.  It 
would  bless  him  that  gave  and  him  that  took. 

If  there  could  be  such  a  thing  in  our  days  as  a  simple-minded 
man  in  Congress,  it  might  not  be  hard  to  suppose  that  a  scheme 
like  this  might  carry  conviction  to  his  mind.  But  my  friend, 
probably,  had  a  less  sentimental  backing  than  this  to  his  prop- 
osition. All  that  portion  of  the  press,  all  those  Congressmen, 
all  the  commercial  interests,  in  the  cotton  area,  were,  perhaps, 
already  driven  up  and  prepared  to  vote  for  this  job  as  a  sec- 
tional issue  ;  for  he  makes  a  great  mistake  who  thinks  we  have 
got  out  of  sectionalism  by  getting  out  of  slavery.  It  was  the 
cotton  which  made  the  sectionalism  before  fully  as  much  as  the 
slave  ;  because  the  slave  might  grow  anywhere,  but  the  cotton 
would  not.  In  this  scheme,  however,  there  was  still  another 
powerful  interest  lying  back  in  the  rear,  and  that  was  a  com- 
bination of  disinterested  gentlemen  who  paid  my  friend's 
expenses  in  Washington,  and  had  already  secured  nearly  the 
whole  sum  to  be  restored  from  the  Treasury,  by  obtaining  the 
refusal  of  nearly  all  the  said  claims  for  the  cotton  which  had 
been  seized. 

Although  sixty  million  dollars  were  to  be  represented  by  the 
bonds  which  the  Treasury  were  to  issue,  it  might  take  but  a 
few  thousand  dollars  to  get  control  of  the  bonds  in  anticipation 
of  their  issue.  These  few  thousand  dollars  would,  perhaps, 
come  from  some  plethoric  banker  who  was  to  be  promised  the 
negotiation  of  the  bonds  when  the  Treasury  should  put  them 
out.  In  order  to  make  everything  fair,  perhaps  a  stock  com- 
pany, with  no  capital  to  see,  but  plenty  to  talk  about,  had 
arranged  to  distribute  stock  in  anticipation  of  the  bonds,  to 
redeem  the  stock  with  the  bonds  when  they  were  at  last  printed, 
and  perhaps  the  whole  Confederacy  was  to  be  "  taken  in  "  some- 
where between  the  passage  of  the  bill  and  the  insurance  of  the 
bonds. 


HOW   BILLS   ARE    L0BBIP:D.  65 

Another  of  our  sterling  knights  of  the  Lobhy  of  Washington 
is  the  gentleman  who  is  responsible  for  the  great  tunnel  pro- 
ject. 

This  man  is  a  Columbus,  a  Lesseps,  and  a  De  Witt  Clinton 
of  his  kind.  He  is,  I  believe,  a  native  of  Prussia,  and  a  fine- 
looking  man,  with  Oriental  features,  a  dark  eye,  excellent  address, 
in  despite  of  his  German  accent,  and  he  is  both  an  author,  a 
pleader,  and  a  diplomatist.  Some  say  he  is  no  engineer  ;  but, 
if  this  be  the  case,  he  has  performed  an  enormous  amount  of 
work  as  a  mere  assumer,  which  it  would  have  been  hard  for  a 
real  professional  mining  engineer  to  do  as  well. 

I  made  this  gentleman's  acquaintance  the  first  year  I  came 
to  Washington,  while  visiting,  as  I  was  in  the  habit  of  doing, 
Mr.  Kiley,  clerk  of  the  Mining  Committee. 

Mr.  Riley  had  led  a  life  of  adventure  ;  had  edited  a  newspaper 
in  British  Columbia,  and  subsequently  made  a  journey  to  the 
diamond  fields  of  South  Africa,  to  write  a  book  for  a  Hartford 
publishing  house.  He  died  of  cancer  in  the  face  before  his  book 
was  completed. 

One  day  while  speaking  to  Mr.  Riley,  he  called  my  attention 
to  some  large  and  beautiful  albums  filled  with  the  richest  pho- 
tographs of  Kings  and  Queens,  works  of  art,  fine  architectures, 
and  people  prominent  in  literature,  opera,  and  adventure,  which 
could  be  collected  in  Europe.  I  had  never  seen,  even  in  Europe, 
such  a  perfect  and  exquisite  library  of  photographs,  and  they 
have  been  uniformly  the  admiration  of  all  who  have  seen  them. 
They  were  the  property  of  the  tunnel-maker.  Adjacent  to  these 
photographic  books  was  a  magnificent  collection  of  gems,  min- 
erals, etc.,  from  the  various  mines  of  Europe.  I  was  told  by 
Mr.  Riley,  as  a  mark  of  confidence,  that  he  would  see  to  it  that 
I  should  become  possessed  of  a  copy  of  an  extraordinary  book 
on  mining  which  his  great  friend  and  collector  was  at  that  time 
publishing. 

In  due  time  this  book  came  out,  and  it  was,  indeed,  an  expen- 
sive and  entertaining  work,  and  of  a  somewhat  technical  char- 
acter. 

< 


i     66  THE  LOBBY  AND   ITS  GENTRY. 

The  title  of  this  work  was,  "  The  Comstock  Lode,  and  the 
Evils  of  the  Present  System  of  Mining." 

It  began  with  a  description  of  the  Comstock  Lode, — a  mighty 
vein  of  gold  and  silver  in  the  State  of  Nevada,  which  was  dis- 
covered in  the  year  1869,  and  on  which  nearly  forty  companies 
owned  claims.  These  companies  had  already  produced  the 
incredible  sum  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  million  dollars  in  bul- 
lion. The  shafts  into  the  lode  had  been  sunk  more  than  one 
thousand  feet,  so  that,  between  the  cost  of  labor,  the  interference 
of  water,  and  the  loss  of  power,  the  whole  lode  was  in  danger 
of  abandonment.  If  abandoned,  one  hundred  thousand  people 
would  be  deprived  of  their  occupation  and  means  of  subsistence  ! 
Such  a  calamity  Providence  had  done  its  part  to  avert  by  rais- 
ing the  lode  a  thousand  feet  or  more  above  the  adjacent  valley, 
which  was  thus  manifestly  designed  to  be  used  for  the  propul- 
sion of  a  tunnel  beneath  the  lode,  which  would  at  once  draw  off 
the  water  and  carry  off  the  ore  by  an  inclined  plane,  and  per- 
mit economical  and  vastly  ramified  mining  for  a  hundred  years 
to  come.  This  tunnel,  which  would  be  called  after  its  proposer, 
would  have  a  length  of  twenty-one  thousand  feet,  with  shafts 
making  the  amount  total  forty-three  thousand.  The  scheme 
had  been  already  proposed  to  eminent  "  experts  "  in  Europe, 
who  forthwith  came  to  the  aid  of  the  engineer  with  letters  of 
hidorsement,  all  duly  printed  in  this  beautiful  volume.  The 
mining  companies  working  far  above  the  lode  had  agreed  to 
pay  two  dollars  a  ton  for  the  ore  which  the  great  tunnel  should 
carry  out  for  them.  The  Tunnel  was  to  have  two  substantial 
railroad  tracks.  Such  tunnels  had  been  built  in  Germany  and 
elsewhere, as  in  the  Hartz  Mountains;  and  the  engineer  staked 
his  reputation,  and  gave  the  whole  tunnel,  liberally,  as  security, 
that,  if  Congress  would  issue  bonds  and  come  to  the  aid  of  the 
work  to  the  extent  of  five  million  dollars,  fifty  million  dollars 
per  annum  of  precious  metal  could  be  brought  out,  science  would 
be  benefited,  the  mineral  domain  would  be  filled  with  immigra- 
tion, the  burdens  of  the  people  in  taxation  would  be  reduced, 
and  the  national  debt  paid  off! 


67 

Some  years  have  passed  since  this  book  was  placed  in  my 
hands,  and  every  year  the  indefatigable  engineer  adds  another 
tome,  if  possible  more  agreeable,  more  eloquent,  and  more  con- 
vincing, in  favor  of  the  proposition.  He  has  obtained  some 
private  credit,  and  has  had  sympathy  among  the  miners,  hun- 
dreds of  whom  have  given  parts  of  their  work  for  nothing ; 
while,  in  Congress,  men  like  William  D.  Kelley,  Gen.  Banks, 
and  Senator  Nye,  have  made  such  speeches  in  his  favor  as  Queen 
Isabel  might  have  delivered  before  the  King  of  Arragon  in  aid 
of  Columbus.  Every  session  of  Congress  finds  the  engineer  in 
good  apartments  at  Washington,  patiently  reasoning  out  the 
cause,  showering  his  scorn  upon  those  too  blind  to  see  and  too 
selfish  to  help  ;  and,  in  the  face  of  the  opposition  of  the  most 
powerful  Capital  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  he  has  succeeded  in  get- 
ting two  or  three  reports  from  the  Mining  and  other  Commit- 
tees, indorsing  his  project.  Horace  Greeley  committed  the  edi- 
torial columns  of  the  New  York  Tribune  to  it.  If  never  achieved, 
it  has  become  one  of  the  notorieties  of  the  period. 

There  is  a  certain  kind  of  nature  in  your  fine  old  lobbyist,  which 
grows  tough  and  sturdy  by  opposition.  In  the  amount  of  oppo- 
sition, it  avows  that  it  finds  at  least  the  bitter  half  of  the  appreci- 
ation which  belongs  to  it.  This  tunnel,  however,  has  not  risen 
above  the  usual  cares  of  such  popular  propositions,  and  the  hand- 
some shares  of  stock  of  the  Tunnel  Company,  which  represent 
the  golden  meed  of  victory,  if  ever  that  time  comes,  are  not 
uncommon  on  the  streets  of  the  Federal  City. 

But,  "Pshaw!"  says  your  fine  old  lobbyist,  "what  is  there 
wrong  about  our  stock  ?  What  is  our  property  we  have  a  right 
to  divide,  as  we  are  a  chartered  institution  under  the  laws."      | 

The  great  banking  institution  which  is  fighting  the  tunnel  i 
proposition  has,  however,  its  own  suggestion  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  country  and  decrease  of  taxation  on  a  scale  scarcely 
less  extraordinary,  in  the  matter  of  irrigation. 

While  our  engineering  friend  wants  to  take  all  the  water 
out  of  the  Comstock  lode,  the  quartz  company  and  bank  which 
oppose  him  want  to  flood  all    the  San  Joaquin  Valley  mth 


68  THE  LOBBY  AND  ITS  GENTRY. 

water,  and  redeem  an  empire  from  tlie  drought.  They  have 
had  engineers  from  India  to  demonstrate  the  entire  feasibiUty 
of  the  project,  and  I  believe  that  their  bill  passed  Congress 
near  the  close  of  the  session,  sustained,  as  it  was,  by  all  the 
powerful  influences  which  resist  the  scheme  of  the  tunnel. 

What  will  become  of  us  if  the  great  tunnel  and  the  great 
irrigating  scheme  combine  and  drench  all  the  Pacific  Coast 
with  the  water  pumped  out  of  the  lode  ?  If  both  the  schemes 
be  successful,  our  heads  will  fly  off;  and,  if  both  fail,  where 
will  be  our  pockets  ? 

The  next  of  our  exalted  lobbyists  is  the  gentleman  who 
watches  the  claims  for  French  spoliation.  He  advertises  with  the 
regularity  of  the  original  Jacobs,  whenever  the  prospect  revives 
for  paying  these  seventy-year-old  losses.  Does  the  Alabama 
Treaty  arrange  to  pay  losses  inflicted  by  British  slavery-corsairs  ? 
So  much  more  the  reason  for  beginning  in  the  right  way  with 
the  wrongs  of  our  grandfathers  !  Is  there  a  Yenezuelean  claim 
commission  prepared  ?  Then  why  do  we  expect  other  govern- 
ments to  deal  restitution  to  us  who  began  with  swindling  our 
countrymen  during  the  French  republican  wars  ?  We  think 
our  gifted  friend  deceased  sometimes  ;  like  Mr.  Hood's  infant ; 

We  thought  him  dying  when  he  slept, 
And  sleeping  when  he  died ; 

for,  after  we  have  ceased  to  regret  him,  hard  as  his  loss  has 
been,  up  turns  that  familiar  advertisement  in  the  Washington 
journals  : 

"  The  French  claims  agency.  In  uninterrupted  existence 
for  forty-five  years.  Justice  is  to  be  done  to  us  at  last,  friends  ! 
I  have  never  doubted  the  integrity  of  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment, if  the  matter  were  pressed  steadily  upon  its  attention. 
The  prospects  at  the  present  time  are  light  almost  unto  the 
perfect  day.  Send  us  the  name  of  your  grandfather's  step- 
father. If  the  middle  name  is  remembered,  please  put  it  in ; 
otlicrwise  no  matter,  for  we  shall  be  sure  to  know  all  about  it. 
We  keep  a  list  of  ships,  captains,  breadth  of  beam  and  keel, 


THE   "  CLAIMS    FOll   FRP^NCH    SPOLIATION."  69 

and  damages  at  compound  interest.  Broken  hearts,  assuage 
your  tears  !  All  will  be  well  by  addressing  Brobiggan,  post- 
office  box  41,144." 

What  kind  of  looking  man  is  this  French  claim  agent  ?  I 
often  wondered  !  Is  he  the  son  or  grandson  of  himself,  having 
inherited  the  business  in  direct  line,  or  is  he  like  "  Pecksniff, 
architect,"  possessed  of  the  designs  of  Chuzzlewit,  merely  a 
clerk  of  the  original  Jacobs,  who  has  wormed  into  the  scheme 
or  purchased  it  for  the  heirs  ?  If  he  be  himself,  the  same  in 
memory,  faith,  and  perseverance,  the  same  stalwart  old-hunker 
of  the  Lobby  whom  Benton  fought,  and  who  stood  with  fortitude 
the  thunder  of  Silas  Wright,  let  him  come  forward  and  give 
us  a  specimen  hair  from  his  brave  old  wig.  Let  him  organize 
the  third  house  and  make  it  regular ;  for  late  Congresses  have 
not  even  been  dignified  Lobbies. 

Do  I  see  amongst  these  great  knights  of  the  Lobby  my  old 
friend  who  wishes  a  self-respecting  government  to  behave  itself 
at  once,  neglect  the  great  considerations  of  empire  no  longer, 
and  rebuild  the  levees  of  the  mighty  Mississippi  ?  I  do  I 
His  honest  face  shines  with  its  wonted  fires.  He  is  a  little 
deaf  on  one  side  ;  but  it  does  not  affect  the  sonorousness  of  his 
elocution,  nor  make  him  swerve  one  hair  from  his  intent.  He 
fought  in  the  -Confederate  Army,  but  he  laid  down  his  arms 
like  a  man.  He  knew  when  he  was  whipped.  From  that  day 
to  this,  he  has  accepted  the  arrangement  of  bunting  as  we  ten- 
dered it  to  him  upon  the  end  of  a  pole.  lie  kneels  to  the  judg- 
ment of  Heaven  and  the  comities  of  time.  Yes,  he  will  take 
something,  as  in  former  days. 
i  We  see  him  wipe  his  magnificent  brow,  and  grow  slightly 
more  pronounced  in  the  Southern  forcshortenings  and  inflec- 
tions. We  see  his  forefinger  extended,  and  that  oath  wliicli 
has  done  more  service  on  great  occasions  than  the  involuntary 
prayer  come  forth  with  the  rare  intensity  of  a  low  whisper. 

When  he  sees  the  alluvial  of  his  country  running  by  the 
thousands  of  tons  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, — the  richest  soil 
under   the   providence  of  Heaven,  with   capacity  for   several 


70  THE   LOBBY   AND   ITS   GE^JTRY. 

nations  to  the  square  acre, — to  build  up  Cuba  and  thaO  foreign 
archipelago  which  is  merely  the  delta  of  the  Mississippi. 

Stop  !  says  he,  "  are  not  the  West  Indies  of  volcanic  forma- 
tion ?  " 

Volcanic,  of  course  !  That's  where  the  wrong  and  devasta- 
tion lie.  Left  to  their  volcanic  selves,  they  would  be  barren  ap, 
the  burning  marl ;  but  it  is  our  alluvial  which  clothes  them 
green  and  makes  them  teem  with  sugar,  indigo,  and  tobacker. 
Yes,  he  will  have  some  Havanny  tobacker,  though  he  despises 
the  fatality  which  produces  it. 

And  my  lobby  friend,  with  unfailing  resources,  spirits,  and 
individualism,  unfolds  again  his  olden  tale.  A  few  thousand 
miles  of  embankment,  at  a  few  thousand  dollars  a  mile,  will 
narrow  the  Mississippi  and  each  of  its  arteries,  and  correspond- 
ingly deepen  them.  Hence  you  save  all  that  you  spend  for 
improving  rivers ;  you  make  every  great  river  navigable  the 
year  round  ;  you  can  build  railroads  on  your  levees.  And, 
instead  of  five  million  bales  of  cotton  you  make  fifteen  million. 
Mark  this,  and  wonder  at  the  blindness  of  human  governments ! 
'Do  you  spend  the  Treasury's  money  to  accomplish  such  a 
result  ?  Oh,  no !  You  give  merely  that  useless  credit  which 
blesses  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes ;  you  give  merely 
the  indorsement  of  the  United  States  to  the  bonds  of  a  Levee 
Company,  which  relieves  the  Federal  Government  from  the 
jealousy  of  the  states  in  undertaking  local  work.  The  Levee 
Corporation  accomplishes  its  object,  collects  taxes  on  all  staples 
raised  on  the  redeemed  territory,  meets  the  interest  on  the 
bonds,  and  pays  the  principal  when  they  fall  due  in  twenty 
years.     Oh,  Chiralrickards  ! 

Do  you  still  harp  on  jfour  state  rights,  and  prefer  to  be  taxed 
by  a  construction  company  instead  of  by  your  government  ? 
Show  me  that  stock  with  which  your  pockets  are  filled ! 
Whose  image  and  superscription  is  it  ?  If  men  would  render 
frankly  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's  how  much 
less  would  they  have  to  render  unto  God ! 


CHAPTER    YL  1 


A   RUNNING   HISTORY   OF   GOVERNMENT   SCANDAL. 

IvEST  WO  might  be  discouraged  in  our  day  by  the  presumption, 
that  we  live  in  the  only  dishonest  period  of  the  Government,  it 
will  be  a  duty  of  solace  rather  than  of  scandal  to  show  that  a 
percentage  of  evil  has  always  been  present  in  the  public  coun- 
cils and  that  episodes  of  impurity  and  treachery  in  the  adminis- 
ti-ation  have  been  sufficiently  frequent  to  excite  the  gravest 
apprehensions  and  indignations  of  their  day. 

In  every  case,  however,  the  public  sentiment  in  reserve  has 
been  strong  enough  to  wash  out  the  stain.  Our  first  scandals 
referred  to  speculations  in  the  public  lands  and  the  public  funds. 

The  State  of  Georgia  was  the  first  to  inaugurate  a  land  swin- 
dle in  1789.  It  sold  out  to  these  private  companies  pre-emption 
rights  to  tracts  of  land  ;  these  companies  were  called  the  South 
Carolina  Yazoo,  the  Virginia  Yazoo,  and  the  Tennessee  Yazoo  ; 
the  whole  amount  of  land  disposed  of  was  fifteen  and  a  half 
millions  acres,  and  the  sutn  agreed  to  be  paid  was  upwards  of 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Subsequently  the  same  lands 
were  sold  to  other  companies  because  the  first  purchasers  insisted 
upon  making  their  payments  in  depreciated  Georgia  paper. 
Hence  arose  the  controversy  on  the  celebrated  Yazoo  claims, 
so-called. 

1798.  This  year  is  notable  in  the  chronicles  of  Congress 
for  the  first  scandalous  breach  of  decorum  that  was  ever  wit- 
nessed in  that  body.  It  occurred  in  the  lower  House  during 
the  balloting  for  managers  to  conduct  the  impeachment  of 
Blount,  and  the  chief  parties  to  it  were  Roger  Griswold  of  Con- 
necticut and  Mathew  Lyon  of  Yermont.     A  number  of  the 


72  RUNNING   HISTORY   OF   GOVERNMENT   SCANDALS. 

members  had  collected  about  the  bar  of  the  House,  and  among 
them  was  Lyon,  who  in  loud  tones  indulged  in  abuse  of  the  Con- 
necticut members  for  their  course  with  reference  to  a  measure 
that  had  just  before  been  under  discussion,  declaring  that  he 
entertained  a  serious  notion  of  moving  into  Connecticut  for  the 
purpose  of  fighting  them  on  their  own  ground.  Griswold 
retorted  by  saying  "  If  you  come,  Mr.  Lyon,  I  suppose  you  will 
wear  your  wooden  sword !"  in  allusion  to  Lyon's  having  been 
cashiered  and  to  a  rumor  that  he  had  been  drummed  out  of  the 
army  while  compelled  to  wear  a  wooden  sword.  At  this  Lyon 
spat  in  his  face,  for  which  he  was  about  to  be  subjected  to  bodily 
punishment  by  Griswold  when  friends  interposed  and  prevented 
it.  Immediately  the  Speaker,  who  had  previously  quitted  the 
chair,  resumed  it  and  stated  the  facts  to  the  House  which 
resulted  in  a  motion  for  Lyon's  expulsion.  This  motion  being 
referred  to  a  committee  of  privileges,  the  latter  quickly  reported 
a  resolution  for  expulsion  accompanied  by  a  full  statement  of 
the  facts.  But  Lyon's  Democratic  friends  obstinately  opposing 
the  resolution  it  was  only  by  a  majority  of  five  votes  that  the 
House  proceeded  to  consider  the  subject  in  Committee  of  the 
Whole ;  and  then,  not  content  with  the  report  already  made, 
required  that  the  witnesses  should  again  testify.  Lyon  in  a 
speech  against  the  resolution  jeopardized  his  defense  by  using 
a  vulgar  and  indecent  expression  which  became  the  basis  of  a 
fresh  charge.  One  of  the  witnesses  Avho  had  testified  to  the 
fact  that  Lyon  had  been  cashiered  was  Senator  Chipman  of  his 
own  State.  Lyon  stated  in  his  speech,  by  way  of  rebuttal,  that 
he  had  once  chastised  Chipman  for  an  insult,  which  drew  from 
the  latter  a  full  account  of  the  affair,  placing  Lyon  in  an  unenvi- 
able position.  After  one  ineffectual  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
opposition,  w^ho  were  unwilling  to  lose  even  one  vote,  to  substi- 
tute a  reprimand  for  expulsion,  the  resolution  was  lost.  This 
unsatisfactory  termination  of  the  action  of  the  House,  intensify- 
ing instead  of  allaying  the  resentment  of  Griswold,  he  deter- 
mined himself  to  punish  Lyon.  Upon  the  occasion  of  his  first 
appearance  in  the  House  after  the  decision  Lyon  was  reading 


.  GRISWOLD   CANES  LYON.  73 

in  liis  seat  when  Griswold  approached  and  commenced  beating 
him  on  the  head  with  a  cane.  Lyon  arose  in  defense'  of  him- 
self, and  a  struggle  of  some  minutes  duration  ensued  in  which 
he  rushed  to  the  fire-place  and  seized  the  tongs  but  was  felled 
to  the  floor  by  Griswold  who  closed  with  and  continued  beating 
him  until  they  were  separated  by  the  friends  of  the  vanquished 
Democrat.  The  House  being  now  called  to  order,  there  was  a 
demand  made  for  tlie  expulsion  of  both  Griswold  and  Lyon, 
but  the  resolution  offered  for  that  purpose  was  defeated. 

Lyon  is  further  notorious  as  being  the  first  to  suffer  penalty 
under  the  Sedition  Law  then  recently  passed.  A  principal 
charge  against  him  was  that  he  wrote  a  letter  which  was  pub- 
lished in  a  Vermont  paper,  stating  that  with  the  President 
"  every  consideration  of  the  public  welfare  was  swallowed  up  in 
a  continual  grasp  for  power,  an  unbounded  thirst  for  ridiculous 
pomp,  foolish  adulation,  and  selfish  avarice,"  etc.  He  was  con- 
victed and  sentenced  to  four  months  imprisonment  and  to  pay 
a  fine  of  one  thousand  dollars.  During  his  imprisonment  he 
was  re-elected  to  Congress,  and,  after  serving  out  the  term  of 
his  sentence  he  appeared  in  the  House  and  took  his  seat,  where- 
upon a  resolution  for  his  expulsion  was  offered,  the  causes  alleged 
being  "  that  he  had  been  convicted  of  being  a  malicious  and 
seditious  person,  of  a  depraved  mind  and  wicked  and  diabolical 
disposition,  guilty  of  publishing  libels  against  the  President, 
with  design  to  bring  the  Government  of  the  United  States  into 
contempt."  But  this  resolution  also  was  defeated,  although  it 
received  a  bare  majority  vote,  and  Lyon  kept  his  seat. 

The  house,  during  the  session  of  1798,  refused  to  pass  a 
resolution  previously  adopted  in  the  senate  to  authorize  Thomas 
Pinckney  to  receive  certain  presents  which  in  accordance  with 
custom  had  been  tendered  him  by  the  courts  of  Madrid  and 
London  at  the  close  of  his  missions  thither,  and  which  he  had 
refused  to  accept  because  of  the  constitutional  provision  relat- 
ing to  presents  from  foreign  powers.  The  resolution  was 
rejected  on  grounds  of  public  policy  as  was  afterwards  declared 

by  unanimous  vote  of  the  house. 
4 


74  HUNNING   HISTORY   OF   GOVERNMENT   SCANDALS. 

The  seat  of  goTcrnment  was  removed  to  Washington  in  1800, 
but  it  had  been  established  here  only  a  short  time  when  the 
building  used  as  the  War  Office  was  burned  and  many  valuable 
papers  were  destroyed.  "Within  a  few  months  after  this  occur- 
rence  the  Treasury  building  took  fire,  and  although  important 
documents  were  lost  the  damage  was  not  so  great  as  in  the 
former  case.  The  violence  of  party  feeling  which  character- 
ized the  times,  imputed  these  occurrences  to  the  design  of 
public  officers  in  seeking  to  destroy  the  evidence  of  their 
deficiencies. 

1804.  The  Federal  Judge  of  the  District  Court  of  Xew 
Hampshire  was  this  year  tried  on  an  impeachment  during  tlie 
previous  Congress  for  willfully  sacrificing  the  rights  of  the 
government  in  a  case  tried  before  him,  and  for  drunkenness 
and  profanity  on  the  bench.  He  did  not  appear  at  tlie  trial 
before  the  Senate,  but  a  petition  was  received  from  his  son 
representing  that  the  Judge  was  insane  and  praying  to  be 
heard  by  counsel.  Against  some  opposition  the  prayer  was 
granted  and  testimony  was  offered  tending  to  prove  the  fact 
of  his  insanity.  To  this  it  was  answered  tliat  his  insanity,  if 
it  existed,  was  the  result  of  habitual  drunkenness,  and  the 
impeachment  was  sustained. 

1804.  The  impeachment  of  Judge  Chase  of  the  Supreme 
Court  followed  closely  upon  the  above  and  was  the  work  of  the 
Jeffiirsonians  who  were  in  a  majority  in  the  house.  Chase  was 
a  Federalist  and  had  made  himself  extremely  obnoxious  to  his 
political  opponents  by  including  in  his  charges  to  the  grand 
juries  of  his  circuit  political  dissertations.  In  one  of  these  he 
had  condemned  the  action  of  Congress  in  repealing  a  late 
Judiciary  Act,  h^d  depreciated  the  change  in  the  constitution 
of  Maryland  dispensing  with  the  property  qualification  of  voters, 
and  had  dwelt  with  some  emphasis  upon  certain  proposed 
changes  in  state  laws  which  he  considered  pernicious.  His 
ability  made  him  an  object  of  fear  to  his  opponents  hardly  less 
than  his  obnoxious  doctrines  subjected  him  to  their  hatred,  and 
they  determined  to  make  this  an  instance  of  popular  vengeance. 


JUDGE   CHASE   IMPEACHED.  75 

On  motion  of  John  Randolph  a  committee  of  investigation  was 
appointed  for  the  purpose  of  inquiring  into  his  official  conduct, 
but  they  were  compelled  to  turn  back  five  years  into  his  record 
before  they  could  discover  much  against  him  which  would  offer 
a  semblance  ol  justification  for  his  impeachment,  and  they  finally 
concluded  to  present  his  action  in  the  Callender  and  Fries  cases 
as  affording  the  least  defensible  points  in  his  judicial  adminis- 
tration. He  was  accordingly  impeached  and  preparations  were 
made  to  prosecute  him  at  the  next  session.  The  articles  of 
impeachment  were  eight  in  number.  In  addition  to  those 
founded  on  his  conduct  in  the  cases  named,  two  articles  were 
based  on  his  charge  to  the  grand  jury  referred  to.  A  month 
was  given  to  the  Judge  to  prepare  his  defense.  It  was  a 
remarkable  scene  when  the  case  came  to  trial.  The  Vice- 
President,  Burr,  was  under  indictment  for  murder  and  red  with 
the  blood  of  Hamilton,  while  the  man  impeached  was  a  signer 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  sixteen  years  a  judge,  and 
pure  and  venerable.  Luther  Martin,  a  drunken-  genius  and  a 
Federalist,  made  a  wonderful  speech  for  Chase,  and  he  was 
acquitted  on  a  majority  of  the  articles  while  in  no  case  were 
two-thirds  of  the  votes  cast  for  his  conviction.  John  Randolph 
played  Ben.  Butler  in  this  trial  and  wanted  judges  made 
removable  by  joint  resolution.  He  even  opposed  paying  Chase's, 
witnesses,  an  act  so  like  Butler's  at  a  later  day  as  to  arouse  a 
smile  in  the  reader. 

In  1805,  Mr.  Dallas,  father  of  the  subsequent  Yice-President, 
was  unofficially  charged  with  having  pocketed  six  thousand 
five  hundred  and  ninety-eight  dollars,  for  three  months  services 
as  state  paymaster  during  the  whisky  insurrection. 

In  180G,  the  Federalists  charged  Jefferson's  administration 
with  voting  two  million  dollars  in  secret  session  to  bribe  France 
to  compel  Spain  to  come  to  some  reasonable  arrangement  as  to 
the  boundaries  of  Louisiana. 

In  the  same  year,  1806,  a  draft  was  found  amongst  the  effects 
of  a  Kentucky  merchant  tending  to  show  that  Judge  Sebastian 
liad  been  a  pensioner  of  Spain.     The  same  was  charged  against 


•76  RUNNING   HISTORY   OP   GOVERNMENT   SCxVNDALS. 

General  James  Wilkinson,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Ameri- 
can Army.  About  this  time  Aaron  Burr  conceived  his 
scheme  of  fillibustering  in  the  Spanish  Colonies,  which  has  led 
to  a  very  gaseous  romance  in  our  history.  Burr's  whole  career 
shows  that  he  was  a  sensationalist  with  little  ballast  of  charac- 
ter or  mind.  Wilkinson  was  a  military  genius  without  sincerity, 
and  he  was  court-martialed  twice,  and  vindicated  by  his  talents 
rather  than  by  the  facts.  John  Randolph  was  challenged  by 
Wilkinson  in  1808,  and  John  Smith,  a  senator  from  Ohio,  was 
set  apart  for  expulsion  by  John  Quincy  Adams  on  the  charge 
of  complicity  with  Burr's  treason,  but  a  majority  only  voted  to 
expel. 

In  1809,  an  intricate  and  prolonged  judicial  and  congressional 
process  arose  out  of  a  claim  by  Edward  Livingstone  of  Louisi- 
ana,— who  had  been  a  defaulter  as  Jefferson's  District  Attorney 
of  New  York, — for  reclaimed  lands  known  as  the  Batture  in 
front  of  New  Orleans.  Livingstone  bought  the  Batture,  condi- 
tional upon  his  recovering  it  by  suit  from  the  city.  The  court 
of  final  resort  decided  that  it  was  his  and  he  paid  ninety  thou- 
sand dollars  for  it,  but  the  citizens  combined  against  him  and 
dispossessed  him.  Jefferson  believed  that  he  was  an  unprinci- 
pled speculator,  and  tlie  militia  were  paraded  and  the  dikes  on 
tlie  property  broken  down.  Livingstone  sued  the  marshal 
who  had  dispossessed  him  and  sued  also  Mr.  Jefferson.  The 
Supreme  Court  at  Washington  put  Livingstone  in  possession 
and  after  indefatigable  exertions  he  got  tlie  property  only  to 
find  that  his  title  was  defective ;  but  he  compromised  with  the 
other  claimants  so  that  the  fourth  which  he  obtained  netted 
him  a  handsome  fortune.  . 

We  have  omitted  in  this  sketch  any  reference  to  Albert, 
Gallatin  and  Mr.  Breckenridge,  both  men  of  national  reputation 
who  were  in  much  responsible  for  the  whisky  insurrection  in 
western  Pennsylvania.  Gallatin  was  a  Swiss  who  became  a 
United  States  Senator,  Secretary  of  tlie  Treasury,  and  Minister 
to  Russia, — one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  we  have  produced 


RUNNING   HSITORY   OP  GOVERNMENT   SCANDALS.  77 

"wlio  lived  to  be  more  than  four-score  and  had  the  greatness  to 
decline  offices  greater  than  he  had  ever  filled. 

In  1809,  prolonged  litigation  and  scandal  arose  over  the 
case  of  the  British  Sloop  "  Active  "  which  had  been  seized  by 
her  American  crew  and  taken  by  a  Pennsylvania  State  cruiser. 
Connecticut  men  seized  her  and  Pennsylvanians  recaptured 
her.  A  Pennsylvania  Judge,  despite  an  injunction  from  a 
Congressional  Committee,  ordered  the  prize  to  be  sold.  Congress 
reversed  the  decision  of  the  State  Court,  but  Rittenhouse,  the 
Pennsylvania  Treasurer,  held  as  indemnity  against  his  personal 
bond  the  certificates  of  federal  debt  in  which  the  prize  money 
had  been  invested.  His  estate  was  sued  by  a  subsequent  State 
Treasurer.  This  led  to  a  conflict  between  militia  acting  for 
the  general  government  and  for  the  state.  The  government 
triumphed,  and  punished  the  resistants. 

It  was  in  1810  that  Congress  set  apart  one  day  in  the  week 
for  private  bills. 

In  1811,  the  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  United"  States  expired, 
and  the  offer  of  a  bonus  of  one  million  and  a  quarter  failed  to 
secure  a  renewal. 

In  1812,  John  Henry,  an  Irish  adventurer,  naturalized, 
brought  on  a  great  scandal  by  accepting  a  commission  to  detach 
the  New  England  States  from  the  Union,  and  then  receiving 
fifty  thousand  dollars  from  President  Madison. 

In  1813,  Clay  and  Calhoun  united  in  a  successful  effort  to 
expel  newspaper  reporters  from  the  floor,  where  they  had  long 
been  sitting,  to  the  gallery  where  they  could  hear  nothing. 

In  1814  the  Yazoo  claims  were  settled  by  the  issue  of  scrip 
to  the  amount  of  eight  million  dollars  to  the  claimants,  most 
of  the  money  going  to  a  set  of  sharks  who  had  bought  the 
claims  for  a  trifle. 

In  1815,  Dallas's  scheme  for  a  National  Bank  with  thirty- 
five  million  dollars  capital  was  adopted.  Calhoun  carried  it 
througli  the  house.  The  next  year  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  was  voted  to  the  Cumberland  Road,  tlie  system 
of  fortifications  was  provided  for  and  the  .first  public  buildings 


•  78  RUNNING   HISTORY   OF   GOVERNMENT   SCANDALS. 

outside  of  Washington  were  resolved  upon.  Congress  also 
voted  itself  one  thousand  five  hundred  dollars  a  year  per  man 
in  place  of  six  dollars  a  day,  and  in  the  same  session  a  pre- 
emption right  for  settlers  on  the  public  lands  was  adopted. 

When  the  books  were  opened  for  the  Second  United  States 
Bank  twenty-five  million  dollars  was  subscribed,  and  three 
million  dollars  more  were  taken  by  Stephen  Girard  who  huck- 
stered it  out  to  other  bankers.  Branches  were  established 
from  the  present  bank  in  Philadelphia,  at  Boston,  New  York, 
Baltimore,  Portsmouth,  Providence,  Middletown,  Washington, 
Richmond,  Charleston,  Norfolk,  Savannah,  Lexington,  New 
Orleans,  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  Chillicothe,  Pittsburg,  Fayette- 
ville,  and  Augusta.  At  that  time  the  public  debt  was  one  hun- 
dred and  five  million  dollars  and  the  revenue  forty-seven  mil- 
lion dollars.  Jefferson  vetoed  the  bill  making  the  bank  pay  a 
bonus  of  one  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars,  as  well  as 
all  dividends  upon  the  public  stock  which  it  held  for  internal 
improvements.  The  bank  grew  corrupt  almost  immediately, 
and  the  State  of  Ohio  refused  to  pay  the  tax  upon  its  two 
branches.  This  Bank  was  a  source  of  annoyance,  scandal,  and 
corruption  until  President  Jackson  finally  closed  it  out.  Amos 
Kendall's  biographer  summed  up  the  subsequent  history  of  that 
Bank  in  1873 : 

"Despairing  of  a  recharter  from  congress,  the  Bank  pur- 
chased an  act  of  incorporation  from  the  Pennsylvania  Legisla- 
ture, and  still  carried  on  its  operations  under  the  name  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States.  In  common  with  the  other  State 
Banks  it  stopped  payment  in  1837,  and  never  resumed.  Though 
declaring  its  entire  individual  ability,  it  discouraged  a  general 
return  to  specie  payments  to  the  last,  and  when  the  other 
banks  could  no  longer  be  restrained  it  threw  off  the  mask  and 
exposed  its  insolvency.  Its  entire  capital  of  thirty-five  millions 
of  dollars  was  dissipated  and  lost.  Such  a  record  as  its  books 
exhibited  of  loans  to  insolvent  political  men,  evidently  Avithout 
expectation  of  repayment,  of  debts  due  by  that  class  of  men 
charged  to  profit  and  loss,  of  loans  to  editors  and  reckless  spec- 


THE   NATIONAL   BANK   SCANDAL.  79 

ulators,  and  of  expenditures  for  political  electioneering  and 
corrupt  purposes,  was  never  before  exhibited  in  a  Christian 
land.  The  ambitious  author  of  all  this  ruin,  who  had  aspired 
with  the  aid  of  his  political  allies  to  govern  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  and  through  his  cotton  speculations  control 
the  exchanges  of  the  commercial  world,  and  had  been  carried 
on  men's  slioulders  as  a  sort  of  demi-god,  liad  resigned  the 
Presidency  of  the  Bank  and  retired  to  a  private  life,  where  he 
died  miserably  with  the  disease  which  consumed  Herod  of  old." 

Mr.  Horace  Clarke  of  New  York,  exposed  in  the  winter  of 
1872,  a  plot  against  him,  the  principal  figure  in  which  was  a 
Committee  Clerk  named  Cowlam.  Mr.  Negley,  of  Pittsburgh, 
introduced  a  resolution  in  the  House,  which  had  been  preceded 
by  alarming  telegraphic  despatches  from  Cowlam  to  Clarke,  to 
this  effect :  "  Honorable  Clarke  !  I  do  not  know  you !  Hence 
tlie  startling  information  I  give  you  is  the  warning  counsel  of 
an  honorable  friend  and  the  secretary  of  Benjamin  Butler. 
An  attempt  is  to  be  made  to  pizen  you.  A  dreadful  conspiracy 
is  planned.     '  Thrice  the  brinded  cat  hath  mewed.'     Bewair !" 

To  this,  Clarke  responded  characteristically  with  an  essay 
several  reams  long,  breathing  an  essence  of  a  gentleman,  a 
statesman,  sweet  bread  and  peas. 

Another  telegraph-despatch  rejoined  from  Cowlam.  The 
conspiracy  was  the  most  dreadful  known  since  the  days  of  Guy 
Fawkes,  and  headed  by  resolute  and  extraordinary  men.  One  of 
these  gigantic  freebooters  was  to  rise  in  Congress  and  point  the 
way  to  the  booty,  and  all  the  rest  were  to  fill  the  breach.  "  Be 
warned,"  says  Cowlam,  *'  for  my  intentions  never  were  sinister, 
since  I  am  the  secretary  of  Benjamin  Butler." 

A  lawyer  was  sent  down  by  the  Owl  Line,  and  he  called  on 
Cowlam.  For  this  disinterested  savior  of  the  Union  Pacific 
Road,  he  saw  a  youth  of  a  freckled  physiognomy,  with  eyes 
which  sparkled  at  the  rattle  of  pennies,  and  wliiskers  blown 
out  from  his  chops,  as  if  at  the  vigor  of  his  own  windiness. 
This  was  the  rescuer  of  the  corporation ;  and  he  pointed  out, 
after  much  mystery,  the  dangerous  authority  who  was  to  have 


80  RUNNING   HISTORY   OP   GOVERNMENT   SCANDALS. 

mounted  the  barricades.  It  was  Negley,  calmly  arranging  his 
hair  at  a  glass. 

The  lawyer  at  once  stuck  Cowlam's  correspondence  in  the 
hands  of  the  immaculate  Jim  Brooks.  When  Negley  mounted 
the  breach,  Jim  Brooks  appeard  at  the  sally-port,  and  presented 
the  veracious  Cowlam  correspondence.  Negley  fell  into  the 
^  moat,  Cowlam  disappeared  by  volatile  evaporation,  and  Jim 
Brooks  slapped  his  hand  over  his  pocket,  and  exclaimed: 

''  The  honor  of  congress  has  been  maintained  by  me  to  the 
extent  of  deserving  fifty  more  shares  of  Mobilier  for  my  dear 
little  son-in-law ! " 

An  enormous  amount  of  forgery,  lobbying,  bribery,  and  liti- 
gation has  taken  place  over  land  claimed  under  Spanish, 
French,  and  Mexican  titles.  Each  of  these  claims  has  been  in 
the  nature  of  a  romance.  The  Bastrop  claim  was  the  pretext 
of  Aaron  Burr's  descent  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Rivers. 
The  Limantour  claim,  so  called  from  a  very  noble  appearing 
old  French  gentleman  named  Jos^  Yves  Limantour  who  prose- 
cuted it,  is  described  below. 

Real  Estate  valued  in  California  which  had  continually 
increased  since  the  acquisition  of  that  State  were  among  other 
causes  depressed  between  1854  and  1858  by  the  uncertainty  of 
land  titles  resulting  from  the  numerous  and  fraudulent  claims 
set  up  to  property  Miat  had  been  purchased  in  good  faith  and 
long  held  by  its  occupants.  Of  these  claims  the  most  distin- 
guished for  audacity  and  extravagance  were  those  of  Jos(^  Yves 
Limantour,  by  birth  a  Frenchman.  His  claims  included  four 
square  leagues  of  land  on  the  San  Francisco  Peninsula,  embrac- 
ing about  half  of  the  most  valuable  part  of  that  city,  Alcatraz 
and  Yerba  Buena  Islands  and  the  Farralores  together  with  lands 
in  other  parts  of  the  state — in  all  about  a  hundred  square  leagues, 
and  he  asserted  his  right  to  the  same  on  the  ground  of  a  grant 
made  to  him  by  Governor  Micheltorena  in  payment  for  mer- 
chandise and  money  advanced  by  him  to  the  latter  ten  years 
before.  The  Board  of  Land  Commissioners  created  by  act  of 
Congress  in  1851  having  confirmed  his  claims,  an  appeal  was 


A   LITTLE    CREDIT   MOBILIER.  81 

taken  to  the  United  States  District  Court,  and  the  follov/ing 
quotation  from  the  opinion  of  the  Judge  rendered  in  185,8  dis- 
closes the  enormity  of  the  fraud  and  the  means  resorted  to  for 
its  accomplishment : 

"  Whether  we  consider  the  enormous  extent  or  the  extraor- 
dinary character  of  the  alleged  concessions  to  Limantour,  the 
official  positions  and  the  distinguished  antecedents  ot  the  prin- 
cipal witnesses  who  have  testified  in  support  of  them,  or  the 
conclusive  and  unanswerable  proofs  by  which  their  falsehood 
has  been  exposed — whether  we  consider  the  unscrupulous  and 
pertinacious  obstinacy  with  which  the  claims  now  before  the 
court  have  been  persisted  in — although  six  others  presented  to 
the  Board  have  long  since  been  abandoned — or  the  large  sums 
extorted  from  property-owners  in  this  city  as  the  price  of  the 
relinquishment  of  these  fraudulent  pretentions  ;  or,  finally,  the 
conclusive  and  irresistible  proofs  by  which  the  perjuries  by  which 
they  have  been  attempted  to  be  maintained  have  been  exposed, 
and  their  true  character  demonstrated,  it  may  safely  be  affirmed 
that  these  cases  are  without  a  parallel  in  the  judicial  history 
of  the  country." 

Before  its  conquest  by  the  United  States  a  very  considerable 
portion  of  the  best  agricultural  lands  in  California  had  been 
granted  to  individuals  by  the  Mexican  Government,  and  the 
boundaries  of  these  grants  had  been  loosely  described.  By  the 
treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  the  United  States  agreed  not  to 
disturb  the  titles  so  vested,  but  the  greatest  difficulty  has  been 
encountered  in  ascertaining  the  extent  and  limitations  of  such 
grants.  This  in  part  explains  the  uncertainty  of  land  titles 
which  has  occasioned  so  much  confusion  and  annoyance  and 
which  has  been  the  source  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  fraud  and 
litigation  that  has  characterized  the  history  of  that  state.  No 
sooner  had  the  motley  crowd  of  adventurers  who  had  congrega- 
ted from  all  parts  of  the  world  upon  the  shores  of  California, 
discovered  the  nature  and  uncertainty  of  the  title  to  the  lands 
there  than  forthwith  sprang  up  from  among  them  a  host  of 
claimants  and  countei'-claimants  under  alleged  Spanish  and 


82  RUNNING  HISTORY   OF   GOVERNMENT  SCANDALS. 

Mexican  grants,  bearing  aloft  in  their  hands  the  forged  docu- 
ments, covered  by  a  superabundance  of  seals,  to  which  thev 
pointed  as  evidence  of  tiieir  rights.  About  eight  hundred  claims 
were  presented  to  the  Board  of  Commissioners  provided  for  the 
emergency,  half  of  which  number  they  confirmed  and  the  other 
half  they  rejected  for  manifest  fraud  and  informality.  Nine- 
teen thousand  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  square  miles,  was 
the  area  of  land  covered  by  these  claims.  On  appeal  to  the 
district  courts  many  of  those  rejected  by  the  Board  were  allowed 
and  some  that  had  received  the  sanction  of  the  Board  were  dis- 
allowed. Even  now  on  the  docket  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  this  business  is  well  represented,  and  so  far  from 
being  settled  it  yet  affords  employment  and  lucrative  pay  to  our 
army  of  attorneys  uJid  clerks.  The  General  Law  Office  has  done 
a  goodly  share  of  the  labor  involved,  but  it  has  marked  against 
it  this  passage  quoted  from  Tuthill's  history  of  California  :  "  It 
was  a  grievance  loudly  complained  of,  that  an  appeal  from  the 
survey  made  necessary  a  journey  to  Washington  to  watch  pro- 
ceedings under  a  subordinate  of  the  Land  Office,  and  many  a 
disappointed  claimant  has  come  home,  alleging  that  the  party 
which  accommodated  the  clerk  with  the  largest  loan  won  the 
decision." 

During  Pierce's  administration  the  Clerk  of  the  Congres- 
sional Committee  of  claims,  Abel  R.  Corbin,  was  detected  and 
exposed  in  the  act  of  black-mailing  some  merchants  of  Boston 
under  the  pretense  of  saving  them  taxation.  He  was  paid  one 
thousand  dollars  but  the  disclosure  lost  him  his  clerkship.  A 
special  report  of  a  blistering  nature  was  made  on  the  case  by 
Hon.  Benjamin  P.  Stanton.  Corbin  had  been  brought  to  Wash- 
ington by  Senator  Benton,  whose  organ  he  had  edited  at  St. 
Louis.  After  his  exposure  he  removed  to  New  York ;  with 
means  obtained  from  his  first  wife,  who  was  much  his  senior,  he 
acquired  a  moderate  fortune  by  speculation.  Years  after  his 
humiliation  at  Washington  he  contrived  to  marry  a  maiden 
sister  of  President  Grant,  and  it  was  he  who  devised  the  scheme 
of  sellino;  a  house  which  he  owned  to  the  admirers  of  his  brother- 


RUNNING   HISTORY   OF   GOVERNMENT   SCANDALS.  83 

in-law.  The  house  passed  out  of  Corbin's  hands  into  Grant's 
and  was  again  sold  to  one  Bowen  who  was  induced  to  surrender 
it  by  the  promise  of  controlling  the  local  offices  of  the  District 
of  Columbia ;  a  new  set  of  admirers  again  purchased  the  same 
dwelling  for  Gen.  Sherman.  Corbin  went  into  a  desperate 
speculation  with  Fisk,  Gould,  Smith,  and  other  unscrupulous 
gamblers,  on  the  memorable  "  black  Friday  "  of  1869.  Atten- 
tion was  then  called  to  his  previous  history  and  I  recovered 
Stanton's  report  from  the  Document  room  and  printed  it  sim- 
ultaneously in  Chicago  and  New  York. 


CHAPTEEVII. 


SCi  ;iETY  AND   THE    CITY  FROM   THE   MADISONIAN   TO  THE    EMANCI- 
PATION   PERIOD. 

The  custom  of  making  New  Year's  calls  in  Washington  is  of 
comparatively  recent  origin.  Mr.  Madison,  who  had  witnessed  the 
interesting  ceremony  in  the  city  of  New  York,  in  1790 — then  the 
seat  of  government — inaugurated  the  custom  at  the  Executive 
Mansion,  when  President,  Jan.  1st,  1810.  Washington  Irving 
was  there  in  January,  1811,  and  in  a  letter  to  Henry  Brevoort, 
describes  Mrs.  Madison  as  "  a  fine,  portly,  buxom  dame,  who  has 
a  smile  and  a  pleasant  word  for  everybody.  Her  sisters,  Mrs. 
Cutts  and  Mrs.  Washing-ton,  are  like  the  two  merry  wives  of 
Windsor ;  but  as  to  Jemmy  Madison,  ah  !  poor  Jemmy  !  he  is 
but  a  withered  little  apple-John."  Francis  Jeffrey  of  the  Edin- 
burgh Review,  who  came  out  in  1812  to  marry  Miss  Wilkes  of 
New  York,  said — "Mr.  Madison  looked  like  a  schoolmaster  dressed 
up  for  a  funeral."  When  Mr.  Madison  asked  Jeffrey  on  his  pre- 
sentation—" what  is  thought  of  our  war  in  England  ?" — the  latter 
replied,  "  it  is  not  thought  of  at  all." 

Mr.  Madison  was  small  in  stature  and  dressed  in  the  old  style, 
in  small  clothes  and  knee-buckles,  with  powdered  hair — was  unos- 
tentatious in  his  manners  and  mode  of  life — but  very  hospitable 
and  liberal  in  his  entertainments  ;  with  great  powers  of  conver- 
sation, full  of  anecdotes  and  not  averse  to  a  double  entendre^ 
though  of  the  utmost  purity  of  life.  He  was  a  thorough-bred 
Virginia  gentleman,  Jeffrey  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 


SOCIETY  IN  WASHINGTON. 


85 


In  August,  1814,  the  White  House  was  burned  by  the  British, 
and  Mr.  Madison  removed  to  the  Octagon,  the  residence  of  Colonel 

John  Tayloe  on  tlie 
corner  of  New  York 
Avenue  and  Tenth 
street — now  the  Bu- 
reau of  Hydrogra- 
phy. Here  he  held 
his  ^New  Year's  le- 
vee, in  1815,  and 
here  he  signed  the 
Treaty  of  Ghent,  in 
the  month  of  Febru- 
ary of  the  same  year, 

TAYLOE   MA>'SION— MADISON'S   RESIDENCE.  '^^  j-j-^g   clrCUlar  TOOm 

over  the  entrance-hall.  In  1816  and  1817,  Mr.  Madison  occu- 
pied the  house  at  the  north-west  corner  of  Pennsylvania  ave- 
nue and  Nineteenth  street,  and  liere  received  his  guests  on  the 
first  day  of  those  years. 

Mr.  Monroe's  first  New  Year's  reception  was  held  at  the  White 
House  in  1818.  The  first  term  of  Mr.  Monroe's  administration, 
from  1817  to  1821,  has  been  pronounced  by  competent  author- 
ity, the  period  of  the  best  society  in  Washington.  Gentlemen 
of  high  character  and  high  breeding  abounded  in  both  Houses 
of  Congress,  and  many  of  the  foreign  ministers  were  distin- 
guished for  talent,  learning,  and  elegant  manners.  The  Baron 
Hyd<3  do  Neuville  represented  the  French  aristocracy  of  the  old 
regime^  as  Mr.  Stratford  Canning,  now  Lord  Stratford  de  Red- 
clyfTe,  did  that  of  Great  Britain. 

Mr.  Monroe  was  plain  and  awkward  and  frequently  at  a  loss 
for  conversation.     His  manner  was   kind  and  unpretending. 

Mrs.  Monroe,  a  Kortwright  of  New  York,  was  handsome  and 
graceful,  but  so  dignified  as  to  be  thought  haughty.  While  in 
the  White  House  Mrs.  Monroe  was  out  of  health.  Her  daughter, 
Mrs.  George  Hay  of  Virginia,  attended  Madame  Campan's 
famous  boarding-school  in  Paris,  and  was  there  the  intimate 


86  SOCIETY  IN   WASHINGTON. 

friend  of  Hortense  Beauliarnais,  tlie  mother  of  Louis  Napoleon. 
Mrs.  Hay  was  witty  and  accomplished  and  a  great  favorite  in 
society. 

In  1822,  the  Marine  Band*  performed  at  the  White  House  on 
New  Year's  day,  as  the  custom  has  been  ever  since.  In  1824, 
the  doors  of  the  White  House  were  thrown  open  for  the  first 
time  on  the  1st  of  January  to  the  public.  The  Intelligencer 
of  the  next  day  congratulates  its  leaders  on  the  decorous 
deportment  of  the  people  on  that  occasion. 

The  winter  of  1825  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  ever  known 
in  Washington.  It  was  the  period  of  the  exciting  election  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  wHen  Mr.  Adams,  Mr.  Clay,  and 
General  Jackson  were  candidates  for  the  Presidency.  The 
Marquis  de  la  Fayette  was  here  as  the  guest  of  Congress,  and 
occupied  apartments  at  Brown's  Hotel.  In  the  last  week  of 
December,  1824,  Congress  had  voted  him  the  munificent  sum 
of  $200,000  for  his  Revolutionary  services.  On  the  1st  of  Jan- 
uary, the  reception  at  the  President's  was  unusually  brilliant — 
for  among  the  guests  were  the  Marquis  de  la  Fayette  and  his 
son,  George  Washington  Lafayette,  Harrison  Gray  Otis  of  Bos- 
ton, the  northern  Chesterfield,  Governor  Gore  of  Massachu- 
setts, Stephen  Van  Rensselaer  the  Patroon,  Rufus  King,  Mr. 
Lowell  and  Mr.  Graham  of  Boston,  Mr.  Edward  Lungston  of 
Louisiana,  Mr.  Clay,  Mr.  Webster,  Mr.  Calhoun,  Mr.  Crawford, 
Mr.  Everett,  Mr.  Wilde  of  Georgia,  Mr.  Hayne  of  South  Caro- 
lina, General  Jackson,  and  many  other  distinguished  persons, 
with  the  ladies  of  their  households — all  resident  in  Washing- 
ton during  that  memorable  winter  and  forming  a  galaxy  of  tal- 
ent, beauty,  and  accomplishment  which  has  never  been  sur- 
passed in  any  subsequent  period  of  W^ashington  Society. 

*The  Marine  Band  of  Washington  has  made  music  at  every  great  entertain- 
ment, levee,  funeral,  or  parade  held  at  the  Capital  since  its  foundation.  It  was 
formerly  esteemed  the  greatest  band  on  the  continent,  but  has  of  late  years  grown 
rusty  and  inferior.  There  are  fifty  pieces  in  it,  and  its  leader,  a  Mr.  Scala,  re- 
ceives $75  a  month,  the  men  being  all  enlisted  at  $21  a  month.  They  live  out- 
side the  barracks,  marry,  draw  rations,  keep  shops,  and  are  chiefly  foreigners. 
This  band  needs  overhauling. 


SOCIETY  IN   WASHINGTON. 


87 


A  grand  entertainment  was  given  on  the  evening  of  the  12th 
of  January,  1825,  by  Congress  to  the  Marquis  de  La  Fayette  at 
Wilhamson's,  now  Willard's,  hotel.  The  management  of  the 
affair  was  entrusted  to  the  Hon.  JoelR.  Poinsett,  M.  C.  from 
S.  C,  Secretary  of  war  in  Mr.  Van  Buren's  administration. 
This  duty  Mr.  Poinsett  discharged  with  admirable  taste  and  to 
the  entire  satisfaction  of  Congress  and  its  guests.  The  com- 
pany assembled  at  six  P.  M.,  to  the  number  of  two  hundred. 
Mr.  Gaillard  of  S.  C,  President  of  the  Senate,  presided  at  one 
table — Mr.  Clay  of  Ky.,  Speaker  of  the  House,  at  the  other. 
The  President  of  the  U.  S.,  James  Monroe,  sat  on  one  side  of 
Mr.  Gaillard,  and  La  Fayette  on  the  other.  The  latter  was 
supported  by  Gen.  Samuel  Smith  of  Md.,  a  hero  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  in  the  immediate  vicinity  with  Rufus  King,  Gen.  Jack- 
son, John  Quincy  Adams,  Samuel  L.  Southard,  Mr.  Calhoun, 
Senators  Chandler  of  Me.,  and  D' Wolf  of  R.  I.,  Gens.  Dearborn, 
Scott,  Macomb,  Bernard,  and  Jesup — Commodores  Bainbridge, 
Tingley,  Stewart,  Morris,  and  other  officers  of  distinction. 

The  dinner  was  prepared  by  M.  Joseph  Prospere,  a  cele- 
brated French  cook  who  came  from  New  York  for  the  purpose, 
and  who  charged  for  his  services  the  modest  sum  of  one  hun- 
dred dollars.  It  was  the  most  elegant  and  elaborate  entertain- 
ment ever  given  in  Washington — many  of  the  dishes  being 
unique  and  artistically  ornamented  in  a  style  never  witnessed 
previously  in  this  country. 

In  the  midst  of  the  dinner,  an  old  soldier  of  the  Revolution, 
arrived  at  the  hotel  from  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  He  was 
eighty  years  of  age  and  had  served  under  La  Fayette.  Mr.  Poin- 
sett being  informed  of  his  arrival  descended  to  the  reception 
room  and  thence  escorted  him  to  the  dining-hall  on  the  floor 
above  and  presented  him  to  the  Marquis.  "  General,"  said  the 
veteran — "  you  do  not  remember  me.  I  took  you  oif  the  field 
when  wounded  in  the  fight  at  Brandywine."  "  Is  your  name 
John  Near,"  inquired  the  Marquis.  "It  is  General,"  replied 
the  veteran.  Whereupon  the  Marquis  embraced  him  in  the 
French  fashion  and  cono-ratulated  him  on  his  healthy  condition 


88  SOCIETY   IN   WASHINGTON. 

and  long  life.  John  Near  also  became  the  guest  of  Congress 
and  remained  at  Williamson's  a  fortnight,  feasting  to  his  heart's 
content  upon  the  good  cheer  provided  him  and  retiring  to  bed 
every  night  in  a  comfortable  state  of  inebriation.  When  he 
returned  to  Virginia,  La  Fayette  presented  him  the  munificent 
sum  of  two  thousand  dollars,  with  which  he  bought  a  farm 
which  is  now  in  the  possession  of  his  descendants. 

La  Fayette  at  this  dinner  gave  the  following  toast :  "  Perpet- 
ual union  among  the  States — It  has  saved  us  in  times  of  dan- 
ger, it  will  save  the  world."  Mr.  Clay  gave  "  Gen.  Bolivar  the 
Washington  of  South  America  and  the  Republic  of  Colombia." 

The  first  private  house  in  Washington  thrown  open  for  the 
reception  of  visitors  on  New  Year's  Day  was  that  of  the  late 
Mr.  Ogle  Tayloe  on  La  Fayette  Square,  in  the  year  1830. 
Here  the  members  of  the  diplomatic  corps  were  accustomed  to 
present  themselves,  after  their  official  visit  to  the  President, 
arrayed  in  their  court  dresses  and  accompanied  by  their  Secre- 
taries and  attaches.  Many  years  elapsed  before  this  custom 
became  general.  In  1849  the  visitors  at  the  White  House 
proceeded  thence  to  the  residence  of  Mrs.  Madison,  where 
they  were  hospitably  entertained.  Mrs.  Madison  was  by  far 
the  most  popular  of  all  the  ladies  who  have  presided  at  the 
White  House.  Mr.  Ogle  Tayloe,  in  his  delightful  reminiscences, 
tells  us  "She  never  forgot  a  face  or  a  name — had  been  very 
handsome — was  graceful  and  gracious  and  was  loved  alike  by 
rich  and  poor."  Mr.  Madison,  when  a  member  of  Congress, 
boarded  in  her  father's  house  in  Philadelphia  where  he  fell  in 
love  with  her,  then  the  widow  of  Mr.  Todd.  Mrs.  Madison  was 
ruined  by  her  son  Payne  Todd,  who  squandered  her  estate  from 
which  she  would  have  realized  at  least  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars. 

On  New  Year's  Day,  1828,  President  John  Quincy  Adams 
wrote  in  the  album  of  Mrs.  Ogle  Tayloe  a  poem  of  eleven 
stanzas,  and  of  great  merit.  He  received  on  Ne^;^  Year's  Day 
and,  like  his  predecessors  Mr.  Madison  and  Mr.  Monroe,  hospi- 
tably entertained  his  guests.     After  his  retirement  from  the 


SOCIETY  IN   WASHINGTON.  89 

Presidency  he  resided  on  the  corner  of  Ninth  and  Sixteenth 
Streets,  where  until  the  close  of  his  life  he  was  accustomed  to 
receive  the  calls  from  ladies  and  gentlemen  on  the  1st  of  Janu- 
ary. Mr.  Adams  was  stiff  and  ceremonious  in  his  manners, 
and  though  by  no  means  popular,  was  always  an  object  of 
respect  to  the  people  of  Washington.  His  wife  was  eminently 
beloved  wherever  known. 

Forty  years  ago  it  was  customary  among  the  ladies  of  Wash- 
ington to  wear  for  the  first  time  at  the  New  Year's  reception  at 
the  White  House,  their  new  winter  bonnets,  cloaks,  shawls,  etc., 
etc. 

General  Jackson's  receptions,  commencing  in  1830  and  con- 
tinuing till  1837,  were  marked  by  a  greater  infusion  of  the 
oi  polloi  than  those  of  his  predecessors.  He  also  provided 
refreshments,  and  in  1836,  being  the  recipient  of  a  prodigious 
cheese  from  a  farmer  in  Jefferson  County,  N.'  Y.  ordered  it  to 
be  cut  on  New  Year's  Day  and  distributed  in  large  slices  of  a 
quarter  of  a  pound  weight.  Many  slices  of  this  cheese  were 
trampled  under  foot  on  the  carpets,  and  the  odor  which  ascended 
from  it  was  far  from  savory. 

Mr.  Van  Buren  discontinued  the  custom  of  serving  refresh- 
ments on  New  Year's  Day  at  the  White  House,  and  it  has 
never  been  revived. 

The  Winter  of  1852,  during  the  administration  of  Mr.  Fill- 
more, was  especially  brilliant  in  Washington.  On  the  1st  of 
January,  the  reception  at  the  White  House  was  characterized 
by  the  presence  of  many  distinguished  persons  from  every  sec- 
tion of  the  Union.  The  agitation  of  the  slavery  question 
appeared  to  have  subsided  and  good-will  and  fraternity  between 
the  North  and  South  were  once  more  the  order  of  the  day. 

Mr.  Fillmore  never  appeared  to  better  advantage  than  when 
receiving  his  friends.  His  fine  person  and  graceful  manner 
rendered  him  conspicuous  in  this  position. 

His  successor,  Gen.  Pierce,  had  also  the  manners  of  a  gen- 
tleman. Mrs.  Pierce  was  saddened  by  the  death  of  her  son, 
and  took  little  part  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  White  House. 


90  SOCIETY  IN  WASHINGTON. 

Mfo  Buchanan's  New  Year's  receptions  did  not  differ  from 
those  oi  his  immediate  predecessors.  Their  great  charm  was 
tho  presence  of  the  mistress  of  his  household,  Miss  Harriet 
Lane,  now  Mrs.  Johnston  of  Baltimore,  a  woman  of  exquisite 
loveliness  of  person  and  the  most  charming  manners.  Who 
that  was  ever  presented  to  her  can  forget  the  graceful  success 
of  her  courtesy  and  her  radiant  smile  of  welcome  ? 

During  these  later  years  it  has  gradually  become  the  custom 
for  our  private  citizens  to  open  their  houses  on  the  first  day  of 
the  year,  so  that  the  unusual  spectacle  to  a  New  Yorker  of 
ladies  in  the  streets  on  that  holiday,  is  now  seldom  witnessed. 
Twenty  years  ago  the  streets  were  filled  with  carriages  on  the 
first  of  January,  bearing  ladies  in  full  dress  and  without  bonnets 
to  the  President's  house  and  the  residences  of  other  members 
of  the  Government. 

In  Mr.  Madison's  time  "Washington  was  a  straggling  village, 
without  pavements,  street  lamps,  or  other  signs  of  civilization. 
The  White  House  itself  was  enclosed  by  a  common  post  and 
rail  fence,  while  all  the  other  reservations  were  unenclosed  and 
destitute  of  trees  or  any  improvement.  Even  in  Mr.  Monroe's 
time  carriages  were  frequently  mired  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue 
in  rainy  weather.  In  1810,  the  population  of  Washington  was 
less  than  that  of  Georgetown  or  Alexandria  which  then  each 
contained  eight  thousand  inhabitants.  All  those  adventurous 
spirits  like  Law,  Morris,  Greenleaf,  and  others  who  had  made 
liere  large  investments  in  real  estate,  were  ruined.  Mr.  Bush 
of  Philadelphia,  writing  as  late  as  1841,  said  he  had  long  before 
lost  all  confidence  in  Washington  property.  It  was  not  until 
the  commencement  of  the  Capitol  extension  in  1851  that  the 
city  began  to  show  signs  of  substantial  prosperity  and  to  afford 
an  earnest  of  its  subsequent  greatness  and  strength.  In  all 
the  past  years  of  its  history  no  improvements  equal  to  those  of 
the  year  1872  have  been  made.  At  least  five  hundred  elegant 
houses  have  been  erected  by  private  enterprise — to  say  nothing 
of  the  miles  of  pavement  and  drives,  constructed  by  the  District 
Government.     A   few  years   more   of   equal   enterprise   and 


SOCIETY   IN   WASHINGTON.  9£ 

vVashington  will  rank  among  the  most  beautiful  cities  on  tliis 
continent. 

Washington  changed  character  almost  entirely  after  the  war. 
Northern  capital  moved  in  and  fine  architecture  prevailed  in 
private  buildings.  The  very  form  of  government  was  altered, 
and  a  Board  of  Public  Works  took  the  paving  of  streets  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  local  legislature. 

The  appropriations  are  now  greater  than  they  have  ever  been 
in  the  history  of  the  city, — far  greater  than  when  the  place  was 
first  pitched  here.  They  amount  to  about  $3,000,000  direct 
this  year,  and  nearly  $2,000,000  more  for  public  edifices.  The 
Capitol  edifice  itself  gets  a  snubbing,  the  architect  being  a  shy 
man,  who  had  not  learned  the  art  of  lobbying  and  could  only 
state  the  necessity  of  repairs  at  least.  But  the  great  new 
renaissance  building  for  the  State,  War,  and  Navy  Departments 
has  received  a  lift  which  will  cover  it  with  stone-cutters  as  soon  as 
Spring  opens ;  a  new  statue  of  General  Thomas  is  ordered,  to 
cost  $40,000 ;  and  the  Farragut  statue  is  taken"  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  artists  of  the  lobby.  In  two  years  from  this  period, 
there  will  be  six  colossal  statues  in  the  streets  of  this  city, 
five  of  them  equestrian,  Washington,  Jackson,  Scott,  Grant, 
Thomas,  and  Farragut,  besides  out-of-door  statues  of  Lincoln, 
Scott,  and  Washington.  The  old  City  Hall  has  passed  wholly 
into  the  possession  of  the  United  States,  and  with  the  proceeds 
and  a  diversion  of  city  funds,  a  new  Hotel  de  Yille  will  be 
erected  in  front  of  the  great  new  market-house,  which  has  cost 
$300,000.  Several  new  street-railways  are  authorized,  and  the 
building-permits  applied  for  or  granted  show  an  extraordinary 
advance  in  construction,  much  of  which  is  of  a  villa  character 
in  the  suburbs.  In  May,  the  whole  line  of  the  Baltimore  & 
Potomac  Road  will  be  opened,  as  well  as  the  new  Metropolitan 
Branch  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio.  And  the  Municipal  Govern- 
ment has  spent  $8,300,000  in  about  eighteen  months,  according 
to  its  own  report,  and  its  opponents  say  $14,000,000,  assessed 
upon  nearly  the  full  valuation  of  property. 

The  enormous  aqueduct  which  runs  eighteen  miles,  through 


92  THE   PUBLIC   WORKS. 

eleven  tunnels  and  over  six  bridges,  is  at  last  completed  and 
connected  with  the  city,  at  a  total  cost  of  about  86,000,000. 
Five  bridges  of  the  most  durable  character,  probably  good  for 
the  next  quarter  of  a  century,  span  Rock  Creek.  One  hundred 
and  twenty  miles  of  water-main  are  now  in  use  in  this  District, 
of  which  twelve  miles  have  been  raised  or  lowered  to  the  new 
grades;  and  530  fire-plugs,  255  public  hydrants,  and  many 
drinking-fountains  carry  off  the  31,000,000  gallons  used  every 
twenty-four  hours  in  this  Capital,  which  is  but  20,000,000  less 
than  all  Paris  gets  from  its  government. 

The  amount  of  paving  done  in  the  past  sixteen  months  is 
almost  incredible  in  view  of  the  former  slow  and  conservative 
progress  of  the  city.  Ninety-three  miles  of  brick  and  concrete 
sidewalks,  and  115  miles  of  concrete,  wood,  round-block,  grav- 
eled, cobblestone.  Macadam,  or  Belgium  block  street  have  been 
laid.  Add  to  this  seventy  miles  of  tile-sewer,  and  eight  miles 
of  brick  main  sewerage  through  which  a  buggy  can  be  driven 
with  ease,  and  the  obliteration  of  the  old  Tiber  Creek  and  canal 
by  one  of  the  largest  sewers  in  the  world,  in  diameter  from  20 
to  30  feet,  and  you  will  see  that  old  Washington  is  no  more. 
The  landmarks  have  perished  from  the  eye.  •  And  the  names 
of  the  streets  are  also  to  be  changed, — those  running  from  north 
to  south  to  be  numbered  from  First  to  Sixtieth,  instead  of  First 
street  West,  Second  street  East,  etc.  ;  and  those  running  from 
east  to  west  are  to  be  no  longer  lettered  A,  B,  C,  D,  etc.,  but 
named,  alphabetically,  Adams,  Benton,  Clay,  Douglas,  etc.,  on 
one  side,  and  Anderson,  Bainbridge,  Chauncey,  Decatur,  etc., 
on  the  other. 

The  Board  of  Public  Works  claims  that,  between  1802-72, 
the  Federal  Government  has  spent  but  $1,321,288  on  the  streets 
of  the  Capital,  while  the  municipality  spent  upon  the  same 
$13,921,767;  adding  Georgetown's  expenditure,  $2,000,000 
more. 


INSIDE    SECTION    OF    THE    DOME    OF    THE    CAPITOL, 
WASHINGTON. 


THE   CAPITOL,   AS   SEEN   FliOM   PENNSYLVAJSflA  AVENUE. 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 


THE  DOME   AND   EXTENSIONS   OP  OUR   CAPITOL  DESCRIBED. 

The  Dome  of  the  Capitol,  as  you  know,  overhangs  the 
middle  of  the  great  building,  whose  name,  in  any  monarchical 
country,  would  be  the  "Palace  of  the  Legislative  Body,"  as 
even  in  this  country  the  "White  House  was  originally  named 
the  President's  Palace,  and  so  described  by  Washington. 

The  old  Capitol  building  had  three  domes  upon  it ;  the 
middle  one,  standing  in  the  place  of  the  present  dome,  was 
constructed  of  wood,  and  it  stood  one  hundred  and  forty-two 
feet  lower  than  the  present.  In  1856,  it  was  removed,  and  the 
construction  of  the  new  dome  began,  which  occupied  nine 
years.  It  is  formed  almost  entirely  of  cast  iron,  resting  upon 
the  old  Capitol  edifice,  which,  to  support  so  vast  additional 
weight,  has  been  trussed  up,  buttressed,  and  strengthened,  so 
that  it  seems  to  cower  beneath  the  threatening  mass  of  its 
superimposed  burden. 

Let  us  look  at  this  dome. 

Poised  over  the  middle  of  the  long  white  rectangle  of  build- 
ings, the  great  dome  rises  in  two  orders :  a  drum  of  iron 


94 


THE   CAPITOL. 


columns  first  encircling  it,  with  an  open  gallery  and  balustrade 
at  the  top ;  then  an  order  of  tall,  slim  windows ;  then  a  great 
series  of  brackets,  holding  the  plated  and  ribbed  roof,  which 
ascends,  balloon-fashion,  to  a  gallery,  within  which  is  a  tall 
lantern,  surrounded  with  columns,  like  a  cupola,  and  over  this 
a  bronze  figure  of  Liberty,  capped  with  eagle  feathers,  holding 


STATUE  OF  LIBEBTY. 


in  her  right  hand  a  sheathed  sword,  in  her  left  a  wreath  and 
shield.  She  faces  east.  Her  back  is  to  the  settled  city  of  the 
Capital.  Excepting  this  figure,  which  is  of  a  rich  bronze 
color,  and  the  dark-glazed  windows,  the  whole  dome  is  white 
as  marble.  The  whol/3  of  it,  as  you  see  it  from  the  ground,  is 
made  of  cast-iron  ;  but  it  harmonizes  well  in  tint  with  the 
Capitol  building,  and  is  of  such  symmetrical  proportions  that 
it  gives  you  no  impression  of  excessive  weight. 
,  It  was  on  the  second  day  of  December,  1863,  that,  at  a 
signal  gun  from  Fort  Stanton,  across  the  eastern  branch,  the 
head  and  shoulders  of  the  genius  of  Liberty  began  to  arise 
from  the  ground.  As  it  slowly  ascended  the  exterior  of  the 
dome,  gun  after  gun  rang  out  from  the  successive  forts  encir- 
cling the  city  ;  when  it  reached  the  summit  of  the  lantern,  and 
joined  its  heretofore  beheaded  body,  all  the  artillery  of  the 
hills  saluted  again,  and  the  flags  were  dipped  on  every  ship 


THE   CAPITOL.  95 

and  encampment.  Majesty  and  grace  are  names  for  it,  and 
holding  at  its  cloudy  height  the  boldest  conception  of  Liberty, 
its  genius  looks  calmly  into  the  sunrise,  and  at  night,  like  a 
directress  of  the  stars,  lives  among  them,  as  if  in  the  constel- 
lation of  her  own  banner. 

Having  taken  this  observation,  let  us  climb  to  the  rotunda. 
Now  look  straight  up.  You  are  amidst  and  beneath  a  vast 
hollow  sphere  of  iron,  weighing  8,009,200  lbs.  How  much 
is  that  ?  More  than  four  thousand  tons ;  or  about  the  weight 
of  seventy  thousand  full-grown  people  ;  or  about  equal  to  a 
thousand  laden  coal  cars,  wdiich,  holding  four  tons  apiece, 
would  reach  two  miles  and  a-half.  Directly  over  your  head  is 
a  figure  in  bronze,  weighing  14,985  lbs.  If  it  should  fall 
plumb  down,  it  would  mash  you  as  if  thirty-seven  hogs, 
weighing  four  hundred  pounds  a  piece,  were  dropped  on  your 
head  from  a  height  of  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight  feet. 
This  bronze  figure  is  sixteen  feet  and  a-half  high,  and  with  its 
pedestal  nineteen  feet  and  a-half.  Right  over  your  head, 
suspended  like  a  canopy,  is  a  sheet  of  metal  and  plaster 
covered  with  allegorical  paintings.  This  hangs  between  you 
and  the  bronze  statue  of  Liberty,  and  is  a  hundred  and  eighty 
feet  distant.  There  are,  therefore,  one  hundred  and  eight  feet 
of  the  full  height  of  the  dome  which  you  cannot  see  at  all 
within,  and  in  like  manner  the  diameter  of  the  rotunda  in 
wiiich  you  stand  is  ninety-seven  feet,  or  eleven  feet  less  than 
the  exterior  diameter  of  the  great  dome,  far  above,  and  thirty- 
eight  feet  less  than  the  extreme  exterior  diameter  at  the  base. 
The  old  rotunda  erected  here  by  Bulfinch  was  ninety-six  feet 
high. 

This  dome  differs  interiorly  at  present  from  most  others  by 
being  a  mere  cylinder,  closed  with  a  dome,  whereas,  nearly  all 
famous  domes  besides  are  raised  upon  churches,  which  are 
cross-shaped,  and  project  a  dome  from  the  abutments  of  the 
hollow  cross.  In  these  abutments,  high  up,  statues  are  com- 
monly set,  as  in  St.  Peter's,  where  the  four  angels  are  placed 
there.  No  merely  civil  edifice  in  the  world  can  boast  a  dome 
at  all  approaching  these  proportions. 


96  THE   CAPITOL. 

The  pressure  of  the  iron  dome  upon  its  piers  and  pillars  is 
13,477  pounds  to  the  square  foot.  St.  Peter's  presses  nearly 
20,000  pounds  more  to  the  square  foot,  and  St.  Genevieve,  at 
Paris,  46,000  pounds  more.  It  would  require  to  crush  the 
supports  of  our  dome  a  pressure  of  755,280  pounds  to  the 
square  foot.  ^ 

The  first  part  of  the  rotunda,  next  to  the  floor,  is  a  series 
of  panels,  divided  from  each  other  by  Grecian  pilasters,  or 
aztoe^  which  suppo'rt  the  first  entablature,  a  bold  one,  with 
wreaths  of  olive  interwoven  in  it. 

Tne  decorations  of  the  dome  consist  of  four  great  hasso- 
relievos,  over  the  four  exit  doors  from  it,  and  of  eight  oil 
paintings,  each  containing  from  twenty  to  a  hundred  figures, 
life-size.  These  paintings  are  set  in  great  panels  in  the  wall, 
under  the  lower  entablature.  Four  of  them  are  by  Colonel 
Trumbull,  Aid-de-Camp  to  Washington,  the  "  Porte  Crayon  " 
of  the  Revolution,  and  these  are  altogether  the  best  historical 
paintings  which  the  country  has  yet  produced.  The  other 
four  paintings,  with  forty  years  advantage  over  those  of 
Trumbull,  are  deteriorations.  Three  of  them  represent, 
respectively,  the  marriage  of  Pocahontas,  the  landing  of 
Columbus,  and  the  discovery  of  the  Mississippi.  They  are 
poorer  than  the  average  of  paintings  in  the  gallery  of  Yersaillcs, 
and  scarcely  rise  above  the  art  of  house  and  sign  painting. 
The  other  picture.  Prayer  on  the  Mayflower,  has  good  faces 
in  it,  and  dignity  of  expression,  but  it  is  dull  of  color,  and  with- 
out any  breadth  of  light.  Trumbull's  pictures  are  conscien- 
tious portraits,  the  work  of  thirty  years'  study ;  they  are 
without  any  genius,  and  timid  in  grouping ;  but  accurate, 
appropriate,  and  invaluable.  Congress  gave  him  an  order  for 
the  whole  four  at  once,  and  wisely.  The  others  ought  to  be 
taken  down  when  we  can  get  anything  better,  and  sent  into 
some  of  the  committee  rooms. 

The  basso-relievos  in  the  panels,  above  the  paintings,  are 
works  of  two  Italians,  pupils  of  Canova,  named  Causici  and 
Capellano,  who,  like  a  great  many  other  itinerant  Italians,  have 
done  work  about  the  Capitol.     One  or  two  of  them,  disgusted 


THE  CAPITOL.  97 

with  the  American  taste  in  art,  or  stricken  with  the  national 
5e?i2!me,  jumped  into  the  Potomac,  and  made  their  lives  more 
romantic  than  their  works.  These  hase  reliefs  are  only  of  three 
or  four  figures  each,  and  are  copied  from  curious  old  engravings, 
cotemporary  with  the  events ;  they  are  not  beautiful,  but  odd,  and 
make  variety  amidst  our  perennial  and  distressing  newness. 
Between  these  large  reliefs  are  carved  heads  of  Columbus, 
Raleigh,  La  Salle,  and  Cabot. 

These  pictures,  true  and  disgraceful  both  to  the  national 
taste,  answer  in  general  the  purpose  of  pleasing  people.  Learned 
rustics  may  be  seen  laboriously  criticising  them  to  their  sweet- 
hearts. The  privilege  is  also  accorded  to  artists  and  others  of 
exhibiting  their  models  and  amateur  sketches  in  the  rotunda, 
whereby  all  sorts  of  strange  prodigies  appear,  flattering,  at 
least,  to  our  democratic  charity,  but  very  amusing  to  foreigners. 

Above  this  series  of  relievos  and  paintings,  there  is  a  broad 
frieze,  intended  to  be  painted  in  imitation  of  basso-relievo. 
Above  this  frieze  there  is  another  entablature  ;  these  are  broken 
up  by  tall  windows  on  the  outer  circumference  of  the  walls  of 
the  dome,  and  at  places  between  the  domes  can  be  seen  glimpses 
of  galleries  and  stairways  ascending  between  the  inner  and 
outer  walls.  At  last,  the  interior  concave  walls  of  the  dome 
proper  made  to  represent  panels  of  oak  foliage,  rise  in  dimin- 
ishing circles  to  the  amphitheatre  in  the  eye  of  the  dome,  which 
is  sixty  feet  in  diameter,  and  surrounded  with  a  gallery  all  of 
iron.  Down  through  the  eye  of  the  dome  looks  the  great  fresco 
painting  of  Brumidi,  and  you  can  see  people  the  size  of  toys 
walking  directly  under  this  fresco,  looking  now  up,  now  down. 

It  will  cost  to  finish  and  paint  this  dome  as  it  should  be 
done,  not  less  than  $250,000.  For  the  painting  in  the  frieze, 
$20,000  will  be  required  ;  to  reform  the  architecture  of  the 
dome  by  reducing  the  number  of  the  entablatures  will  cost, 
probably,  $100,000.  To  paint  the  iron  panels  in  imitation  of 
oak,  as  they  are  cast,  will  cost  $30,000  to  $50,000.  It  was  the 
intention  to  have  buried  Washington  under  the  floor  of  the 
rotunda  j  this  failing,  to  bury  Lincoln  there,  and  to  open  a 
5 


98  THE   CAPITOL. 

large  galleried  place  in  the  floor,  through  which  the  visitor 
could  look  at  the  sarcophagus,  as  is  the  case  with  the  tomb  of 
Napoleon,  under  the  dome  of  the  Hotel  des  Invalides,  in  Paris. 
In  either  case,  the  families  of  the  dead  objected,  and  with  good 
taste  ;  for  a  rotunda,  used  for  profane  and  noisy  flirting,  hob- 
nobbing, lobbying,  and  loitering,  is  no  place  for  a  hallowed 
sepulture.  Here  the  statue  of  Washington,  by  Greenough, 
stood,  till  removed  by  barbarous  enactment,  in  all  its  Roman 
nakedness,  into  the  adjacent  park.  Something  of  the  worthiest 
and  most  colossal  is  requisite  here — a  statue  of  Public  Opinion, 
say,  or  an  allegory  of  Destiny,  or  an  effigy  of  Democracy.  So, 
around  the  sides  of  the  dome,  there  are  spaces  for  statues  and 
busts,^  which  ought  some  day  to  be  filled. 

Situated  midway  between  the  two  houses  of  Congress,  at  the 
middle  of  the  Capitol,  and  across  all  the  avenues  of  communica- 
tion, the  rotunda  under  the  dome  obtains,  as  it  always  will 
obtain,  an  important  and  picturesque  place  in  the  history  of 
legislation.  There  are  iron  settees  around  it,  where  wait  for 
appointments  of  various  sorts,  people  of  all  qualities  and  pur- 
suitis,  some  to  waylay,  some  to  rest,  some  to  see  the  infinite 
variety  of  race  or  station,  or  behavior  of  passing  people.  Bright 
paintings  encircle  it,  for  height  and  admissible  enterprise  are 
suggested  there  ;  something  curiously  instructive,  some  problem 
to  the  thought,  is  everywhere.  Danger  and  power,  suppositious 
accident  and  vivid  carnival,  fill  up  the  hours.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  curious  studies  in  the  world,  and  destined  to  be  the  scene 
of  vital  conferences,  wild  collisions,  perhaps  of  solemn  ceremo- 
nials, sometimes  of  happiness,  sometimes  of  anarchy,  sit  here, 
under  this  high  concave  ;  and,  while  the  feet  of  the  perpetual 
passengers  fill  the  void  with,  echoes,  you  may  interpret  them  to 
tlic  coming  of  the  mob,  when  legislation  Is  too  slow  for  brutal 
party  rage,  or  some  unflinching  Senator  may  hear  from  hence 
the  howling  of  Public  Opinion.  Here  may  some  brave  act  the 
best  assassination ;  here  may  be  promised  the  price  of  eminent 
treason.  Here  may  some  conquering  army,  mastering  the 
Capitol  once  more,  unfurl  their  foreign  standards,  and  with 


THE    DOJIE    AND    SPIRAL    STAIR    CASE    IN    CONSERVATORY, 
AT    WASHINGTON. 


THE  CAPITOL.  99 

their  enthusiasm  or  orchestras  celebrate  the  fall  of  the  Eepub- 
iic.  So  long  as  the  people  reign,  the  Capitol  of  the  United 
States  will  not  be  distributed  between  the  wings,  but  concen- 
trated under  the  dome.  The  rotunda  is  western  human  nature's 
^amphitheatre.  Here  will  stroll  the  chaotic  dictator  of  Democ- 
racy, Avith  its  liundred  hands  on  the  wires  of  the  continent. 
Many  a  fair  face  will  do  temptation  upon  patriotism  and  public 
duty  in  the  broad  sounding  area  of  assignation,  typical  as  it  is 
ot  the  arcana  of  the  earth,  where  the  individual  voice  but  rolls 
into  the  general  ecliQ ;  the  general  echo  is  sometimes  articulate, 
but  the  highest  shout  that  all  can  raise  stays  a  little  while,  and 
expires  in  stronger  silence.  The  dome,  with  its  hungry,  hollow 
belly,  is  government  as  you  find  it,  familiar  with  its  gluttonies 
and  processes,  its  dyspepsias  and  cramps.  The  outer  dome  is 
government  as  the  vast  mass  of  citizens  behold  it — ^white  and 
monumental,  and  crowned  with  Liberty. 

How  is  this  vast  height  lighted,  is  the  next  question.  Here 
we  are  in  the  battery  room,  which  adjoins  the  dome.  The  smcli 
of  the  acids,  ranged  in  quadruple  circles  around  the  place,  in  glo^S 
jars  as  big  as  horse-buckets,  has  no  other  effect  upon  the  battery- 
tender,  he  says,  than  to  make  him  fat.  There  are  here  one 
hundred  and  eighty  cells  set  up  and  filled  with  sulphuric  acid, 
after  the  principle  of  Smee,  constituting  altogether  the  strongest 
battery  in  the  world,  and  which  furnishes  the  power  to  Mr, 
Gardiner's  electro-magnetic  apparatus,  which  lights  the  lan- 
tern, the  dome  and  the  rotunda,  touching  up  thirteen  hundred 
gas-burners  in  a  few  moments.  The  whole  machinery  cost 
about  thirty  thousand  dollars.  Of  itself,  this  beautiful  and 
almost  miraculous  apparatus  deserves  a  newspaper  article. 
The  power  is  fifty  tons,  as  if  a  thunder  cloud  as  heavy  as  a 
laden  canal  boat  were  concentrated  on  the  point  of  a  needle, 
and  "  fetched  "  you  a  dash  in  the  eye.  To  light  up  the  Capitol 
by  this  machinery,  there  is  an  electro-magnetic  engine,  with 
connecting  wires  to  all  the  burners  in  the  building,  and  to  each 
wire  a  metallic  pointer  ;  the  gas  is  turned  on  by  cranks,  answer- 
ing each  to  a  portion  of  the  Capitol ;  then  the  magnetic  bolt  is 


100  THE   CAPITOL. 

darted  up  the  proper  wire  ;  in  thirty  seconds  the  darkness  is 
ablaze.  This  apparatus  occupies  one  of  the  old  wing  domes  of 
wood,  the  dome  being  the  battery  room,  thb  engine  standing  next 
door.  Thus  the  old  building  sends  light  up  to  the  new  one  ;  the 
little  dome  holds  fire  for  the  great  dome.  You  should  see  them 
turn  the  great  dome  from  perfect  night  to  perfect  day.  Stand 
under  it !  A  little  moon  dazes  the  far  up  slits  of  vindows  ;  the 
concave  oye  is  absolute  night ;  all  the  sculptures  are  lost  upon 
the  wall ;  color  and  action  are  gone  out  of  tlie  historic  canvases  ; 
the  stone  floor  of  the  rotunda  might  be  some  great  cathredal's, 
for  you  can  oniy  feel  the  gliding  objects  going  by,  and  hear  the 
dull,  commingling  echoes  of  feet  and  whispers. 

At  a  wink  the  great  hollow  sphere  is  aflame.  You  can  see 
the  spark-spirit  run  on  tip-toe  around  the  high  entablature, 
planting  its  fire-fly  foot  on  every  spear  of  bronze  ;  a  blaze 
springs  up  on  each  ;  chasing  each  other  hither  and  thither,  the 
winged  torch-bearing  fairies  on  the  several  levels  race  down  the 
aisles  to  the  remote  niches,  to  lateral  halls,  to  stairways  all 
variegated  with  polished  marbles,  over  illuminated  sky-lights 
armorially  painted.  Your  thought  does  not  leap  so  instantly  ; 
and  people  far  off  in  the  city  see  the  lantern  at  the  feet  of  the 
statue  of  Liberty,  arise  in  the  sky  as  if  a  star  had  lighted  it. 
Since  the  first  commandment  of  God  to  the  earth,  light  has  had 
no  such  messenger.     It  is  nearest  to  will — it  vindicates  Moses. 

No  great  building  in  the  world  is  so  lighted,  except  the 
Academy  of  Music,  and  some  theatres  in  New  York.  But 
thirty  thousand  dollars  is  dear  even  for  a  miracle.  Matches 
are  high. 

Standing  here,  at  so  lofty  an  altitude,  one  is  apt  to  suppose 
that  he  has  reached  the  king  of  human  peaks.  Not  so.  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome,  is  432  feet  high  to  the  lantern,  or  144  feet 
higher  than  the  tip  of  this  airy  Liberty.  St.  Paul's  in  London, 
is  seventy-two  feet  higher  than  this. 

And  the  great.  Capitol  itself,  down  upon  which  we  are  looking, 
covering  652  square  feet,  more  than  three  and  a  half  acres,  is 
one-eighth  smaller  than  St.  Peter's  Church,  and  only  one-fifth 
larger  than  St.  Paul's. 


VIEW    IN    THE    CONSERVATOKY    AT    WASHINGTON. 
FAN    PALMS,    ETC. 


OF  THR 

UNIVERSITY 


THE   CAPITOL.  101 

Yet  it  is  high  enough  for  timid  people.  The  highest  part  of 
the  Capitol  building  is  nearly  two  hundred  feet  below  us. 

How  much  money  is  there  in  all  this  Capitol  ?  What  did  it 
cost  ?  Upon  the  aggregate  head,  I  doubt  if  the  congregated  con- 
sciences of  all  the  architects  and  builders  of  the  Capitol  can 
reply,  exactly.  One  gentleman,  who  has  been  figuring  up  at  it 
a  long  time,  estimates  the  cost  at  $39,000,000.  The  lowest  esti- 
mate I  have  heard  at  all  was  $15,000,000.  But  let  us  see  what 
is  the  architect's  statement.  The  entire  cost  of  the  old  Capi- 
tol, down  to  1827,  was  less  than  $1,800,000.  St.  Peter's 
Church,  at  Rome,  cost  $49,000,000.  The  new  Court  House  in 
New  York,  is  said  to  have  cost  $8,000,000.  People  have  talked 
foolishly  about  the  cost  of  the  public  edifices  at  the  seat  of 
government.  Here  are  some  precise  figures,  as  Mr.  Clark  gave 
them  to  me.  They  do  not  include  the  furnishing  of  the  build- 
ings, however : 
Cost  of  the  library  apartments,         -        -        -    $  780,500 

"     "     "     Oil  painting  by  Walker : 

"  Storming  of  Chapultepec,"         -  -  6,000 

Five  water  closets  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, -  -  .  -  -  2,178 
Annual  repairs,  -  -  -  -  15,000 
Annual  repairs  for  dome,  -  -  -  5,000 
Heating  old  Capitol  (centre),  -  -  15,000 
Cost  of  the  new  wings  of  the  Capitol,  -  -  6,433,621 
Cost  of  building  the  dome,  -  -  -  1,125,000 
Total  cost  of  construction  of  all  the  public 

buildings  in  Washington  City,  -  27,715,522 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  visit  the  Capitol  in  the  recess.  "  After 
Congress  adjourns,  we  begin  to  know  each  other.  The  carpen- 
ter and  the  barber  go  fishing  together.  The  architect  of  the 
Capitol  inquires  for  your  family.  The  Capitol  policemen  and 
the  officers  of  the  barracks  near  by  stop  at  your  door-step  to 
chat  with  your  baby.  It  is  like  living  in  some  college  town 
during  the  vacation,  and  very  cool,  amiable,  and  agreeable  is 
Capitol  Hill  in  Summer. 


102  THE   CAPITOL. 

At  "Whitney's  I  saw,  a  few  days  ago,  a  white  bearded  old 
gentleman,  of  a  Northern  and  business  habit  and  address.  He 
had  a  brown  complexion,  a  square-ended  nose,  beveled  at  the 
tip,  and  a  hearty  down-east  manner. 

"  Don't  you  lijiow  Mr.  Fowler,  Gath?"  said  a  gentleman  near 
by.  "  This  is  Mr.  Charles  Fowler,  who  built  the  dome  of  the 
Capitol."' 

Mr.  Fowler  was  born  in  Hartford,  Connecticut.  He  is,  or 
was,  a  member  of  the  former  firm  of  iron  founders,  Fowler  & 
Beeby,  at  Read  and  Centre  streets.  New  York.  He  was  the 
lowest  bidder  to  cast  the  patterns  for  the  dome,  and  that  noble 
piece  of  iron  work,  solitary  in  the  world,  was  set  up  by  him. 
Perhaps  you  can  best  get  the  spirit  of  what  he  had  to  say  in 
the  catcgorial  form  in  which  he  gave  it. 

"  What  was  your  contract,  Mr.  Fowler,  when  you  first  under- 
took to  build  the  dome  ?" 

"  Seven  cents  a  pound  for  all  the  iron  used.  The  architect, 
Thomas  N.  Walter,  made  the  designs,  piece  by  piece.  They 
ran,  for  example,  an  inch  to  eight  feet.  I  was  to  put  up  the 
dome,  furnishing  all  the  scaifolds,  workmen,  and  so  forth,  for 
seven  cents  a  pound." 

"  Did  they  keep  their  bargain  ?" 

"No.  General  Franklin  was  superintending  engineer  when 
I  first  arrived  here.  He  made  the  contract  for  the  War  De- 
partment. After  I  had  run  the  dome  up  to  the  top  of  the  first 
order,  or  the  drum,  as  you  see  it  there.  General  Meigs  was  put 
in  Franklin's  place.  He  cut  my  contract  down,  arbitrarily,  to 
six  cents  a  pound.     I  consulted  my  lawyers,  and  they  said : 

'  This  cutting  down  of  your  contract  is  a  piece  of  force,  having 
no  authority  in  law.  But  if  you  don't  submit  to  it,  you  will 
be  kept  out  of  your  money  at  ruinous  expense.  So  accept  it 
and  come  back  upon  the  justice  of  the  government  at  another 
time.' 

"  Therefore  I  took  the  six  cents,  and  the  work  was  stopped. 

"Tlic  yard  of  the  Capitol  was  littered  with  iron.  Senator  Foot 
and  others  began  to  ask  : 

*  Why  is  the  work  on  the  dome  suspended  V 


VIEW   IN   TIIK    CONSERVATORY   AT    WASHINGTON. 
IJANANAS,    ETC. 


WORK   ON   THE   DOx^IE.  103 

"They  demanded  a  recontinuance  of  the  work,  and  had  an 
order  made  out  transferring  the  work  upon  the  Capitol  exten- 
sion from  the  War  to  the  Interior  Department.  This  was  done 
to  lift  out  of  Cameron's  hands  the  matter  of  the  dome. 

"  I  went  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  and  demanded  my 
additional  cent  a  pound.  It  was  paid.  I  demanded  also  the  fif- 
teen thousand  dollars  which,  under  the  first  arrangement,  was 
withheld  from  my  control  to  insure  the  finishing  of  the  dome. 
This  was  paid  over.      Then  I  went  to  work  again." 

"  On  what  principle  is  that  dome  set  up,  Mr.  Fowler  ?" 

"  On  this  principle  :  there  is  a  skeleton  series  of  ribs  within : 
they  extrude  supports  for  the  outer  dome :  the  figure  on  the 
top,  the  government  guaranteed  to  furnish,  as  it  afterwards  did, 
from  Clark  Mill's  designs  and  castings.  The  scales  on  the 
dome  are  bolted  together.  There  is  no  structure  in  the  world 
more  enduring  than  that  dome.  You  may  call  it  eternal,  if 
you  like.  It  weighs  over  5,000  tons.  That  is,  .you  tell  me, 
only  one-ninth  the  weight  of  the  Victoria  tower,  on  the  Parlia- 
ment buildings,  in  London.  Why,  sir,  the  Rocky  Mountains 
will  budge  as  quickly  as  that  structure.  There  are  some  things 
about  it  which  I  don't  like,  but  the  Government  Superintendent 
is  absolute.  For  example,  the  first  coat  of  paint  should  have 
been  different.  I  protested.  Tut  it  on  white,'  said  the  chief. 
Consequently  the  dome  eats  up  paint  by  the  ton  every  year, 
because  there  is  not  a  good  color  for  a  base." 

"  Does  not  the  dome  leak,  sir,  by  reason  of  the  metal  plates 
expanding  and  contracting  ?  Is  it  not  possible  that  by  the  per- 
petual working  to  and  fro  of  the  plates,  rust,  fractured  rivets 
and  final  collapse  will  take  place  ?  " 

"  Why,  the  whole  dome  is  of  one  metal :  it  expands  and  con- 
tracts like  the  folding  and  unfolding  of  a  lily,  all  moving 
together.  An  atmospheric  change  that  will  move  one  piece 
moves  all — scale  and  bolt.  Eust  will  happen,  but  to  avoid  this 
tlie  building  must  be  kept  water-tight  and  well  painted.  It  is 
not  by  mechanical  changes  that  public  works  are  affected,  but  by 
sudden  and  unnecessary  political  changes.     For  example :  I  got 


104  THE   CAPITOL. 

a  judgment  against  the  Government  in  the  Court  of  Claims  last 
week  for  twenty-six  thousand  dollars.  They  made  a  contract 
with  me  to  put  up  the  wings  of  the  Library,  as  I  had  already 
finished  and  deliyered  the  main  part  of  it.  The  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  was  suddenly  changed,  and  he  abolished  my  con- 
tract whimsically.  Therefore,  I  bring  suit,  and  his  little  whim 
costs  the  people  twenty-six  thousand  dollars,  besides  putting  me 
out  of  pocket  even  at  that.  See,  also,  the  effect  of  a  change 
of  superintendents,  which  I  have  already  referred  to.  I  have 
a  claim  of  sixty-odd  thousand  dollars  for  the  increased  cost  and 
delay  incurred  by  me  through  the  substitution  of  Meigs  for 
Franklin.  Had  they  let  me  go  on  by  the  terms  of  my  contract, 
I  should  have  had  the  work  done  by  1861.  They  stopped  me 
arbitrarily ;  the  war  came  on ;  iron  went  up  some  hundred  per 
cent ;  the  river  was  lined  with  rebel  batteries ;  freights  went 
up  400  per  cent ;  the  price  of  labor  went  up  almost  as  badly. 
A  new  man's  whim  will  cost  sixty  thousand  dollars,  perhaps, 
to  the  people  ;  if  not,  it  will  come  out  of  my  pocket. 

"  I  tell  you,  sir,"  said  the  dome-builder,  encouraged  in  his 
theme, ''  whim,  freak,  change,  are  responsible  for  a  good  deal 
of  folly  and  more  extravagance  here. 

"  Let  me  show  you  how  they  got  a  dome  in  the  first  place  ; 
for  that  is  an  example  : 

"  Mr.  Walter,  the  architect,  prepared  the  plans  for  a  complete 
extension  of  the  Capitol — new  wings,  new  dome,  and  a  new 
marble  front  for  the  middle  or  freestone  building,  which  was 
the  old  Capitol ;  and,  as  he  knew  very  well  that  Congress  would 
never  vote  this  money  in  the  most  economical  way, — ^that  is,  in 
bulk,  or  by  fixed  yearly  parcels — he  first  submitted  the  wings. 

"  Next,  as  Congress  was  about  adjourning  at  the  end  of  a 
session,  and  they  were  all  very  merry  at  night — ^ladies  on  the 
floor,  everytliing  lively,  the  dome,  splendidly  painted,  was  pre- 
sented in  a  picture  and  adopted  at  once." 


CHAPTEE   IX. 


SOME  OP  THE   ORGANIC   EVILS   IN   OUR  CONGRESSIONAL 
SYSTEM. 

The  present  chapter  will  deal  in  a  discursive  way  with 
some  of  the  evils  in  general  legislation. 

With  every  Congressman  comes  a  little  knot  of  retainers, 
often  to  his  own  disgust ;  for  he  has  used  them  and  finishedp 
and  now  they  are  quick  that  he  shall  fulfil  his  promises- 
Promises  arc  ruin-seeds.  Nine-tenths  of  the  crime  of  the 
state  is  tied  to  rash  and  often  needless  promises.  "  Mr. 
Godtalk,"  says  Stirrup  the  saddler,  "  I  admire  your  course, 
sir,  and  want  to  see  you  re-elected." 

"  Stirrup,"  says  Godtalk,  "  why  don't  you  get  the  post- 
ofQce  ?  It  will  be  a  nice  little  addition  to  your  income,  take 
no  time  from  your  trade,  and  be  an  honor  amongst  your 
neighbors." 

''  Mr.  Godtalk,  I  never  aspired  to  office,  sir." 

"  Tut !  tut !  Stirrup ;  it's  easy  as  asking.  If  I'm  elected 
I'll  work  for  you  !  " 

Behold !  the  first  uneasy  and  interested  seed  is  planted  in 
the  good  citizen.  He  becomes  henceforward  a  corrupted  man, 
the  "  bore  "  of  his  Representative,  another  hanger-on  around 
the  Capitol.  This  loose  and  almost  always  needless  tendering 
of  promises  is  the  mistake  of  the  politician,  and  the  corruption 
of  the  constituent  alike.  Every  promise,  loosely  made  and 
broken  to  the  hope,  returns  to  plague  giver  and  receiver.  We 
have  been  promising  the  darkeys  in  the  South — some  of  us — a 


106  ORGANIC   EVILS   IN 

mule  and  a  forty-acre  farm.  Let  us  look  out  that  the  mule 
doesn't  kick  us  dead,  and  the  forty-acre  farm  be  our  political 
cemetery.  Promise  nothing  out  of  the  contract  of  principles. 
Come  to  Washington  with  free  hands,  and  the  highway  to 
honor,  if  it  has  enemies  before,  will  have  no  assassins  behind ' 
No  sooner  had  the  members  of  Congress  begun  to  arrive,  than 
the  poor  promise-bearers  followed  after.  They  looked  mean, 
as  does  every  man  with  an  immortal  soul,  who  waits  for  a  favor 
that  he  does  not  deserve.  The  saddler's  fingers  were  nervous. 
The  citizen's  direct  look  of  searchingness,  and  yet  confidence, 
had  a  sycophantish,  sidewise  smile  in  the  bottom  of  it.  The 
man  was  clinging  by  his  eyelids  to  a  politician's  word  of 
honor,  and  God  help  the  hold  on  that  support !  The  constit- 
uent had  already  begun  to  feel  revengeful,  for  his  suspicious 
fears,  born  of  his  conscious  meanness,  had  begun  to  reproach 
his  Representative.  Both  were  disgusted.  The  politician  had 
dishonored  the  saddler's  hearth  with  a  foolish  promise,  and 
made  a  family  malcontent,  and  traitors  to  obedient,  cheerful 
citizenship. 

There  is  no  time  when  one  sees  these  personal  errors  so 
vividly  in  their  effect  upon  the  State,  as  at  the  opening  of 
Congress.  The  power  of  the  State,  as  an  attraction  and  an 
evil,  when  it  enters  into  competition  with  the  private  patrons 
of  the  people,  is  at  this  time  very  manifest.  You  live,  per- 
haps, down  in  Egypt,  or  on  the  Illinois  Central  Road,  and  get 
the  paper  afar  off,  and  in  your  heart  you  honor  the  State. 
The  news,  as  it  comes  from  Washington,  is  vague  and  great 
to  you.  The  names  of  senators  are  resonant  names,  which 
you  hold  in  excellent  respect.  The  Government  is  the  mighty 
protector  of  you  and  yours,  a  sworded  benefactor,  a  most 
impartial  father,  and  yet  almost  your  son. 

When  this  Government,  by  one  of  its  officers — ^legislator  or 
what  not — comes  down  from  its  misty  remoteness  of  sun  and 
thunder  cloud,  like  Jupiter  to  Danae,  and  singles  one  of  you 
out  for  its  caresses,  tho  pure  worship  you  have  paid  it  turns  to 
personal  lust  and  jealousy.     Therefore,  the  fewer  possessions 


OUR  CONGRESSIONAL   SYSTEM.  107 

that  the  Government  holds,  the  better  for  it  and  you.  With 
its  clear,  attenuated  brow  and  naked  buckler,  it  is  our  common 
champion;  but  with  armsfuU  of  public  lands,  bon-bons  of 
railway  subsidies,  Christmas  gifts  of  Indian  contracts  and 
sinecures,  and  the  whim  and  capacity  to  make  invidious 
favoritisms,  Government  entering  the  market  place  is  the 
wickedest  debaucher  of  the  people. 

•A  man  came  to  me  recently.  "You  know  a  good  many 
people  in  Congress,'*  he  said ;  "  I've  got  a  little  business  I 
want  to  see  you  about  after  awhile.  I'm  here  in  behalf  of  the 
Snuffbox  tribe  of  Indians ! " 

"  What  do  the  Snuffboxes  want  ?  " 

"  Oh !  they're  despret  anxious  to  get  that  treaty  o'  theirn 
fixed ;  want  to  sell  their  land,  you  know,  being  hard-up  and 
desirous  of  agoing  South.  It's  all  just  and  fair  as  the  Golding 
Rule.  This  yer  Osage  expozay  spiled  the  treaty  of  the  Snuff- 
boxes. But,  as  I  said  before,  ourn  is  clar  and  just  as  the 
Golding  Rule.'* 

Not  being  a  street  preacher,  I  replied  only  in  generalities 
to  this  gentleman ;  but  in  this  correspondence  may  make  it 
plain  to  you  that  by  the  very  situation  of  the  Government  we 
have  been  unjust  to  the  Snuffbox  Indians  and  this  corrupt 
lobbyist  together.  This  was  evidently  an  intention  to  cozen 
the  Snuffboxes  out  of  three  or  four  millions  of  rich  acres ;  but 
why  was  this  man,  apparently  a  good  citizen  (he  had  been  a 
soldier)  in  the  job  ? 

Because  Government  was  in  the  market  as  patron  and 
employer.  The  citizen  found  a  short  cut  to  wealth  by  making 
a  treaty,  and  quitted  his  honest  livelihood  to  come  to  Wash- 
ington and  make  marketable  the  plausibilities  of  Congressmen. 
Here  he  saw  a  way  to  spend  a  year  of  dishonorable  feeling, 
*'  smelling,"  and  huckstering  for  the  sake  of  a  lifetime  of 
wealth.  We  must  make  an  honest  man  of  him  by  putting 
Governments  out  of  the  market,  abolishing  the  Indian  title  in 
lands,  and  setting  the  entire  government  real  estate  on  an 
equal  footing,  so  that  you,  John  Smith,  Tom  Walker,  and  the 


108  ORGANIC  EVILS    IN 

devil  may  be  made  equal  purchasers,  so  far  as  nature  finds 
you. 

The  growth  of  obligations  has  come  to  be  so  much  a  matter 
of  slavery  to  the  Congressman  that  he  cannot,  if  he  would, 
evade  them.  They  confront  him  in  the  highest  places  and 
demand  that  he  keep  up  the  fashion  of  providing  for  his  friends 
as  he  did  in  the  lower  walks. 

For  example,  after  Mr.  Colfax  fell  into  disgrace  through  the 
Credit  Mobilier  Exposure,  a  leading  Senator  said  to  a  friend  of 
mine  :  "  Tlie  way  to  Colfax's  ruin  was  already  paved.  He  had 
deserted  his  friends,'* 

"  How  ?" 

"  Well,  he  announced  after  Grant  and  he  were  elected,  that 
he  would  not  ask  for  patronage  of  any  kind  but  leave  it  all  to 
General  Grant.  That  was  weak,  but  he  did  it  to  appear  mag- 
nanimous, as  if  he  did  not  wish  to  take  any  of  the  glory  or 
reward  from  liis  colleague  on  the  ticl^et.  Commonplace  people 
thouglit  it  hyperfineness.  His  acquaintances  and  supporters 
thought  it  was  timidity  or  selfishness.  General  Grant  Avould 
have  understood  and  respected  Colfax  better  had  he  come  right 
up  and  asked  that  his  friends  be  considered.  It  was  a  childish 
movement  on  Colfax's  part,  but  he  was  always  juvenile,  even 
in  his  cunning.  You  can't  make  even  a  Christian  statesman 
out  of  too  good  a  boy.  So  Colfax  won  nothing  by  his  austere 
virtue  and  shook  all  his  enemies  out  of  the  tree.  When  he  saw 
his  mistake, — and  he  was  the  last  to  see  it, — he  endorsed  every- 
body's application  for  office.  This  was  worse  than  if  he  had 
recommended  none ;  for  it  carried  no  weight,  being  so  cheap 
and  common.  And  so  this  man  broke  under  his  feet  the  ladder 
of  patronage  he  had  been  so  industriously  building  up.  He 
thought  there  could  be  a  time  when  he  could  dispense  with  his 
friends.  That  time  never  arrives  to  any  but  the  greatest  order 
of  men.  The  obligations  of  politics  are  mutual ;  the  price  of 
fealty  is  promotion.  And  it  happened  opportunely  for  Colfax's 
outraged  supporters  that  his  time  was  ripe  to  rottenness  just  as 


OUR   CONGRESSIONAL   SYSTEM.  109 

he  had  coolly  dispensed  with  them.  They  did  not  dig  his 
grave  but  they  buried  him  in  it." 

The  mere  value  of  a  residence  here  is  esteemed  as  so  much 
money-right,  because  you  may  board  with  a  Senator,  lend  a 
horse  to  a  Serge ant-at-Arms,  or  know  a  doorkeeper  well,  and 
this  involves  the  possible  right  to  demand  a  favor  of  the  Fede- 
ral State. 

"  Do  you  want  five  thousand  dollars  down  in  a  check  ?"  said 
a  man  to  another  once  in  my  hearing.  "  Here  it  is.  I  want 
somebody  in  the  Senate  to  propose  to  take  up  the  bill  making 
seven  Judge  Advocates.  I  don't  want  you  to  see  it  pass, 
because  there  are  seven  of  us  who  have  fixed  all  that.  It's 
bound  to  pass  !  We  only  want  some  one  Senator  to  lift  it  up. 
Whom  do  you  know?" 

This  was  in  the  last  hours  of  the  session.  Suppose  you  lived 
here,  and  had  entertained  Senator  Enoch,  of  Hindoocush,  with 
a  soft  crab  lunch ;  what  more  easy  than  to  slip  up  to  the  door- 
keeper, say,  "  Take  this  card  to  Enoch,"  see  Enoch  come 
benevolent  through  the  door,  say  "  Senator,  my  nephew  depends 
on  this  bill  being  raised  ;  vote  as  you  please,  only  move  to  lift 
it ;  did  you  enjoy  those  crabs  ?"  And,  presto,  there  is  $5,000 
down  merely  for  knowing  one  man. 

So  large  is  the  power  of  the  Federal  Congress  becoming, 
that  to  be  a  doorkeeper,  messenger,  even  a  page,  is  to  possess 
a  chance  to  obtain  offices,  privileges,  and  appropriations.  I 
used  to  see  a  dull-eyed  man  in  one  of  the  galleries — a  door- 
keeper. One  day  there  was  a  huge  overthrow  of  officials,  and 
into  a  post  of  great  trust  this  doorkeeper  walked.  From  being 
a  servant,  he  became  an  officer  of  Congress,  and  in  his  present 
place  knows  matters  so  valuable,  that  the  regular  Secretary  of 
the  Senate  cannot  know  them.  The  choice  may  have  been  a 
superb  one,  but  I  instance  it  only  to  show  the  advantage  of 
having  the  right  of  acquaintanceship  with  Congress.  Clerk- 
ships in  the  House  and  Senate,  are  worth  fortunes  to  some 
people.  Here  in  the  Clerkship  of  Claims,  Mr.  Corbin  grew 
wealthy,  and  yet  he  never  had  a  vote ;  but  the  knowledge  of 


110  ORGANIC   EVILS  IN 

\7l1at  was  going  on,  and  the  right  to  salute  honorable  members 
familiarly,  and  to  say  a  good  familiar  word  for  some  one's 
claim — this  was  his  royal  road. 

Few  persons  are  aware  how  Congress  conducts  business,  and 
one  might  go  to  the  chambers  and  read  the  Qlohe  every  day  for 
two  years,  without  growing  a  great  deal  wiser.  Yet  it  is  by 
the  defects  of  the  organization  of  Congress  that  thievery  thrives 
— defects  inseparable  from  all  human  contrivances. 

The  commercial  republic  whose  soul  and  courage  be  not  in 
sentiment,  but  in  necessity,  is  open  to  this  criticism,  that,  while 
it  has  money  to  spend  to  keep  the  empire  together,  it  does  not 
lilie  to  risk  its  blood  for  the  same  purpose. 

A  Mr.  Shannon,  of  California,  who  was  a  member  of  Congress 
during  the  war,  said  to  me  the  other  day  : 

"  This  Congress,  and  every  other  that  I  have  seen,  is  cursed 
by  demagogues.  I  can  understand  a  scoundrel,  and  meet  him ; 
but  a  demagogue  is  an  insidious  being,  who  works  with  treach- 
ery upon  the  instability  of  periods  and  localities,  and  defeats 
good  legislation,  by  making  somewhere  a  prejudice.  During 
the  war,  when  we  had  been  defeated  on  the  Rappahannock,  and 
everything  was  going  to  pieces,  Congress  sat  here  in  session, 
debating  how  to  make  a  new  army.  It  was  proposed,  in  this 
emergency,  to  have  a  conscription,  and  make  every  man,  if 
necessary,  come  out  to  defend  his  country  ;  but  when  this  bill 
passed,  what  did  that  demagoguing  Congress  do,  though  it  sat 
within  a  day's  march  of  the  enemy  ?  Why,  they  set  about 
passing  a  commutation  bill,  which  was,  in  fact,  nothing  but  a 
bill  to  raise  revenue.  The  United  States  had  a  right  to  every 
man  in  it  to  go  to  the  front  if  he  was  needed  and  take  his  chances, 
but  that  miserable  set  of  demagogues  sat  there  wrangling  as  to 
whether  the  draft  policy  could  not  be  evaded  by  the  payment  of 
some  money." 

In  this  you  can  see  how  the  commercial  republic  prefers  to 
sacrifice  but  one  thing,  and  that  is  cash.  In  peace  it  will  buy 
justice,  and  in  war  it  prefers  to  buy  the  nation  back,  rather  than 
to  fight  for  it.     Here  is  one  of  the  greatest  evils  at  the  Capital, 


OUR  CONGRESSIONAL  SYSTEM.  Ill 

not  that  corrupt  legislators  hot  from  the  stews  ol  caucus,  will 
take  money  for  their  vote,  but  that  commercial  men  of  high 
character,  will  pay  the  money  m  order  to  save  time.  When  a 
set  of  interests  in  New  York  want  a  bill  essential  to  their  sol- 
vencyr.-=-a  bill  perfectly  proper  in  itself  to  pass  Congress,  they 
employ  a  lawyer  and  send  him  on  here,  with  autjiority  to  draw 
money  it  it  be  needful ;  and  he  generally  gets  but  one  instruc- 
tion, and  that  is  to  carry  the  bill,  and,  "  if  these  fellows  begin 
to  tinker  about  it,  just  pay  them.'*  It  is  the  country  people  of 
the  United  States  who  are  still  its  mainstay — the  large  class 
who  have  not  been  debuached  by  great  profits,  and  whose  devo- 
tion to  the  State  is  as  strong  as  the  family  tie  itself.  If  we  can 
stop  demagoguing  among  the  poor  people,  and  corruption 
amongst  the  enterprising,  we  shall  have  solved  the  main  prob- 
lem ;  and  our  reserve  forces,  which  are  rapidly  gaining  strength, 
— such  as  intelligence  amongst  the  masses,  the  dissipation  of 
old  illusions — such  as  the  assumption  that  the  plundering  of  the 
many  is  business — and  the  drafting  of  good  men  into  politics 
by  a  sort  of  social  enforcement — these  are  our  reliances  to  save 
the  State. 

Here,  before  me,  as  I  write,  is  the  Captain's  chart,  the 
manual  for  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  It 
consists  of  500  odd  pages,  and  superbly  bound,  and  is  a  piece 
of  government  work,  pronounced  by  Colfax  to  be  the  best 
parliamentary  manual  in  the  English  language. 

The  contents  of  this  book  are  :  1.  The  Constitution,  and 
amendments,  of  the  United  States — so  well  indexed  that  the 
Speaker  can  catch  any  phrase  of  it  in  a  couple  of  winks.  2. 
Thomas  Jefferson's  manual  of  parliamentary  practice,  which, 
by  law  of  1837,  governs  "  in  all  applicable  cases."  3.  The 
standing  rules  and  orders  of  business  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, 161  in  number.  4.  Joint  rules  and  orders  of  the 
house,  22  in  number.  5.  Standing  rules  in  the  Senate,  53  in 
number,  6.  The  whole  of  the  foregoing  digested  or  made 
compendious  and  perspicuous  by  John  M.  Barclay,  Journal 
Clerk  of  the  House  of  Representatives.     The   digest  alone, 


112  ORGANIC   EVILS  IN 

making  212  large  pages.  Herein  you  haye  the  traditional  and 
self-imposed  laws  of  the  National  Legislature  in  the  popular 
branch,  and  he  who  shall  study  this  book  well,  can  be  advised 
of  the  most  economical,  expeditious,  and  impartial  way  of 
carrying  on  the  federal  legislation  of  the  Republic.  A  very 
few  members^  however,  have  studied  the  manual:  some  have 
never  looked  into ;  and  a  large  proportion  of  those  who  know 
it  best,  have  mastered  it  for  the  purpose  of  taking  advantage  of  it. 

Young  men  and  boys  have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  legislation. 

Willie  Todd,  Speaker  Colfax's  messenger.  Of  him  I  took 
occasion  to  inquire  into  the  person  and  history  of  Thaddy  Mor- 
ris, who  had  been  page  to  Speaker  Pennington  in  1859,  and 
virtual  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  Mr.  Pen- 
nington was  a  delightful  old  gentleman,  ignorant  of  parliamen- 
tary practice,  and  he  was  elected  by  a  compromise  between  the 
adherents  of  Sherman  and  Marshall,  of  Kentucky.  Placed  in 
his  embarrassing  chair,  he  found  the  great  dog-pit  of  the  House 
barking,  like  Cerberus,  under  him,  and  he  took  every  ruling, 
point,  and  suggestion  from  Thaddeus,  most  gratefully. 

Once,  it  is  related,  when  young  Morris  had  prepared  every- 
thing snugly  for  Pennington,  outlined  the  order  of  business, 
prompted  him  completely,  and  left  the  course  "  straight  as  the 
crow  flies,"  so  that  a  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  need  not  go 
astray,  he  said  to  the  Speaker  :  "  Now,  go  on." 

"  Now,  go  on  !  "  cried  Pennington,  promptly,  to  the  House  ; 
at  Vv^hich  thore  was  huge  laughter. 

It  was  an  inspiring  thing  to  see  that  delicate  boy,  secreted 
in  the  pinnacle  of  the  nation,  like  Paul  Revere's  friend  in  the 
old  South  Church  spire,  supplying  knowledge  to  the  gray- 
beard  who  had  the  honor  without  the  skill  of  governing. 
There  is  many  a  boy,  unseen,  at  the  elbows  of  statesmen — 
little  fellows  of  downy  chins — whose  heads  are  as  long  as  a 
sum  at  compound  interest. 

This  is  the  Senate-house,  a  room  all  gold  and  buff,  a  belt  of 
buff  gallery  running  round  it ;  through  the  gold  of  the  roof 
twenty-one  great  enameled  windows  giving  light.  The  floor 
hereof  is  a  soft  red  English  carpet ;  deep  golden  cornices  sur- 


OUR  CONGRESSIONAL  SYSTEM.      _  113 

round  the  hall ;  a  blue-faced  clock  without  a  sound  goes  on 
with  time  remorselessly.  So  blackly  the  people  fill  all  these 
galleries  that  it  is  but  here  and  there  a  sunbeam  falls  upon  a 
face,  making  it  warm  yellow ;  the  far-ceiling  corners  of  this 
hall  are  full  of  darkness ;  dark  also  are  the  deep-gilt  ornament- 
ations in  the  edge  of  the  ceiling ;  upon  the  floor,  however, 
where  the  chief  actors  stand,  it  is  clear  as  open  day. 

The  scenes  witnessed  in  the  night  sessions  are  a  good  deal 
like  the  physical  manifestations  to  which  you  are  used  in  old 
cross-road  churches  at  what  is  called  "  revival  time."  People 
speaking  against  time  to  exhausted  auditors,  each  auditor, 
however,  getting  up  steam  for  his  particular  turn  at  exhorta- 
tion or  prayer.  The  Speaker,  whose  attention  and  nervous 
readiness  must  be  kept  up  to  a  high  pitch,  sits  far  up  in  his 
seat,  behind  the  marble  desks  of  the  clerks,  gavel  in  hand, 
like  a  man  on  a  wagon-box,  keeping  in  rein  two  hundred 
horses  at  once,  and  these  horses  —  "  fractious,"  or  poorly 
broken — duck,  break  up,  rear,  neigh,  or  pull  the  wrong  way, 
or  lazily,  while  his  gavel  is  flourished  like  a  whip-handle 
without  a  lash.  The  disposition  to  draw  blood,  and  the  inca- 
pacity to  do  it,  are  very  clearly  expressed  in  his  face,  and 
therefore  he  brings  the  House  to  by  a  loud  "  Whoa !  "  Then 
he  straightens  them  up  with  a  cautious  "  Peddy — peddy — 
whoa !  G'lang  now !  "  Directly  some  stallion  bounces  off 
into  a  ditch,  and  the  Speaker's  "  Gee,  there,  Mike !  "  or 
"  Haw !  haw !  Tommy !  "  with  dreadful  indications  of  the 
broken  whip-handle,  coerce  the  team  into  some  degree  of  good 
behavior. 

In  the  cloak-room,  some  groups  of  Congressmen  are  smoking. 
Here  and  there  on  the  floor  of  the  House  you  see  some  one 
surreptitiously  pulling  at  his  cigar.  Every  lobbyist,  who  by 
hook  or  crook  can  get  upon  the  floor,  is  traveling  about 
between  seats  and  sofas,  with  a  sly,  sidewise  look,  an  express- 
train  tongue,  and  a  vigorous  movement  of  his  hand,  gesturing 
on  his  private  interest.  Here  is  a  member  helping  out  some 
such  lobbyist,  introducing  him  round,  pulling  a  group  of  folks 


114  ORGANIC   EVILS   IN 

into  the  wash-room  or  side-lobby,  all  talking,  hearing,  suggest- 
ing, flying  round  like  folks  wrought  up  to  the  verge  of  despair. 
In  the  open  space  before  the  Speaker  a  score  of  anxious  people 
assemble,  ready  to  seize  the  Speaker's  eye  and  gouge  some 
proposition  through  it.  Now  vindictiveness  is  most  alert  to 
beat  some  hated  rival  or  adverse  interest  in  the  dying  hours 
of  the  session,  as  it  has  succeeded  so  well  in  doing  during  the 
bulk  of  the  season.  You  can  make  intense  studies  wherever 
you  look,  as  ot  two  such  hating  and  hated  enemies  watching 
each  other.  Here  is  Bellerophon,  the  member  from  Pasca- 
goula,  resolved  to  get  his  friend  Shiftless,  of  the  contested 
seat,  through  in  the  nick  of  time,  for  Shiftless  has  scarcely 
money  enough  to  embark  on  the  train  for  his  home,  and  he 
hopes,  by  a  decisive  vote,  to  save  all  his  back  pay,  settle  his 
board  bills,  and  have  some  spending  money. 

Bellerophon  is  on  the  floor,  in  the  area,  working  his  faith- 
fullest.  He  cries,  "  Mr.  Speaker,"  in  and  out  of  time,  feels 
his  skin  abraded  by  repeated  failures,  and  the  color,  pale  or 
red,  rises  alternately  to  his  cheeks,  while  poor  Shiftless  stands 
ofl  in  pleading  silence,  saying  short  pieces  of  prayer  between 
his  need  and  his  hypocrisy,  like  a  man  in  a  steamboat  when 
there  is  inevitably  to  be  a  scuttling.  Some  distance  off,  Strike, 
the  unappeasable  enemy  of  Shiftless,  lurks,  with  the  light  of 
revenge  in  his  eyeball,  and  the  phrase  "I. object!"  upon  his 
tongue,  balanced  like  a  man's  revolver  at  full-cock.  So  they 
fignt  it  out.  So  they  stand  arrayed — the  old  immemorial 
history  ot  friendship,  enmity,  and  hero,  celebrated  since  litera- 
ture could  venture  to  portray  anything.  The  morning  hours 
advance ;  nature  gives  out,  and  all  doze  or  sleep  but  these 
three,  and  many  similar  trios  like  them.  At  last  even  interest 
subsides,  and  he  whose  rights  are  being  guarded,  feels  himself 
satiety,  listlessness,  inattention.  He  sleeps  at  his  desk,  while 
vigilant  Friendship,  keeping  guard  in  the  area  with  v/eary 
legs,  cries  steadily  in  all  the  pauses : 

"  Mr.  Speaker,  I  believe  I  have  the  floor !  " 

"  Mr.  Speaker,  you  recognized  me,  I  am  sure,  sir !  " 


OUR  CONGRESSIONAL  SYSTEM.  115 

Still  Malice,  with  unsmoothable  eyes,  is  ready  with  his 
cocked  revolver,  saying  ever ; 

"  I  object !  " 

Even  Friendship  wearies  in  the  end,  and  stopping  in  some 
empty  perch  to  rest,  feels  the  leaden  weights  upon  its  eyeballs, 
drive  them  slowly  down.  But  when  the  interested  one  and 
his  champion  are  quite  overcome,  still  tireless  and  remorseless 
the  Enemy  looks  out,  bright  and  prepared,  with  the  uncom- 
promising— "  I  object !  " 

Knovi^ing,  as  I  did,  the  undertone  of  motive  at  the  Capitol, 
I  watched  the  last  hours  of  the  session  on  a  Saturday  with 
something  of  the  sentiment  of  Lord  Macaulay  when  he  contem- 
plated the  Tower  of  London  ; 

^'  They  are  associated  with  whatever  is  darkest  in  human 
nature  and  in  human  destiny,  with  the  savage  triumph  of 
implacable  enemies,  with  tli«  inconstancy,  the  ingratitude,  the 
cowardice  of  friends,  with  all  the  miseries  of  fallen  greatness 
and  blighted  fame." 

The  same  must  be  said  of  the  latter  days  of  the  Senate,  in 
executive  session  here,  when  enemies  fall  afoul  of  each  other 
and  slaughter  each  other's  hopes  of  place  between  the  decisive 
instants  of  triumph.  It  is  the  old,  old  story  ot  Raleigh, 
Essex,  and  Sidney. 


CHAPTER  X. 


STYLE,   EXTRAVAGANCE,   AND   MATRIMONY  AT  THE   SEAT   OP 
GOVERNMENT. 

Dining  in  Washington  is  a  great  element  in  politics.  The 
lobby  man  dines  the  Representative ;  the  Representative  dines 
the  Senator ;  the  Senator  dines  the  charming  widow,  and  the 
charming  widow  dines  her  coming  man.  For  reed  birds  the 
politician  consults  Hancock,  on  the  avenue  ;  for  oysters,  Har- 
vey ;  and  for  an  ice  or  a  quiet  supper,  Wormly  or  Page  ;  but 
there  is  no  dinner  like  Welcker's.  He  possesses  an  autograph 
letter  from  Charles  Dickens,  saying  that  he  kept  the  best  res- 
taurant in  the  world.  He  has  given  all  the  expensive  and 
remarkable  dinners  here  for  several  years ;  and  talking  over 
the  subject  of  his  art  with  him  a  few  days  ago,  we  obtained 
some  notions  about  food  and  cooking  at  Washington. 

Welcker  is  said  to  be  a  Bel- 
gian, but  he  has  resided  in 
New  York  since  boyhood,  and 
he  made  his  appearance  in 
Washington  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war  as  steward  of  the 
seventh  regiment.  He  is  a 
youthful,  florid,  stoutish  man, 
with  a  hearty  address,  a  ready 
blush,  and  a  love  for  the  open 
air  and  children.  Every  Sum- 
mer he  goes  down  the  Poto- 
mac, shutting  his  place  behind  him,  and  there  he  fishes  and 
shoots  off  the  entire  warm  season,  wearing  an  old  straw  hat 


JNO.   WELCKER. 


RESTAURANT   PRICES.  117 

and  a  coat  with  only  one  flap  on  the  tail.  Nobody  suspects 
that  this  apparition  of  Mr.  Winkle  is  the  great  caterer  for  the 
Congressional  stomach.  Nobody  imagines  that  this  rustic  is 
the  person  whose  sauces  can  please  even  Mr.  Sam.  Ward,  that 
distinguished  observer  for  the  house  of  Baring  Brothers.  No- 
body knows — not  even  the  innocent  and  festive  shad — ^that 
this  Welcker  is  John  Welcker,  who  came  to  Washington  dur- 
ing our  civil  broil,  drew  and  quartered  for  Provost  Marshal 
Fry,  fed  all  the  war  ministers,  and  gave  that  historic  period 
tlie  agreeable  flavor  of  Mushrooms. 

In  the  early  days  of  Washington,  entertainments  other  than 
family  ones  were  given  at  the  taverns,  some  of  which,  as  Beale's, 
stood  on  Capitol  Hill.  Afterward  Mrs.  Wetherill,  on  Carroll 
Row,  set  especial  dinners,  breakfasts,  and  suppers  to  order.  In 
later  times  Crutchett  on  Sixth  street,  Gautier  on  the  Avenue, 
and  Thompson  on  C  street,  established  restaurants  a  la  carte, 
Gautier  sold  out  to  Welcker,  who  had  such  success  during  the 
war  that  he  bought  a  large  brick  dwelling  on  Fifteenth  street, 
near  the  Treasury,  and  at  times  he  has  leased  several  surround- 
ing dwellings,  so  that  he  kept  a  hotel  in  fact,  though  without 
the  name.  Welcker  has  a  large  dining  room,  eighty  feet  long 
by  sixteen  feet  wide,  with  adjustable  screens,  adapting  it  to 
several  small  parties,  or  by  their  removal  to  make  one  large 
dining  room,  which  will  seat  one  hundred  people.  Welcker's 
main  lot  is  one  hundred  and  thirty-three  by  twenty-five  feet. 

The  character  of  Welcker's  entertainments  is  eminently 
select,  and  his  prices  approach  those  of  the  English  Castle  and 
Falcon,  or  of  Philippe's  in  Paris.  His  breakfasts  and  dinners 
a  la  carte  are  about  at  New  York  rates,  less  than  those  of  the 
Fourteenth  Street  Delmonico,  and  matching  the  St.  James  and 
Hoffman  restaurant  prices.  The  most  expensive  dinners  he 
lias  ever  given  have  cost  $20  a  plate.  Fine  dinners  cost  from 
^10  to  $12  per  plate,  and  breakfast  from  $5  to  $8  per  plate. 
He  has  fed  between  six  and  seven  hundred  people  per  diem,  as 
on  the  day  of  Grant's  inauguration.  His  best  rooms  rent  at 
$8  a  day,  and  consist  of  a  suite  of  three  rooms,  but  the  habit- 


118  STYLE   AND   EXTRAVAGANCE. 

ants  thereof  pay  the  establishment  for  food,  wine,  &c.,  not  less 
than  $50  a  day. 

Welcker's  chief  cook  is  an  Italian  Swiss,  obtained  from  Mar- 
tini's, New  York, — the  same  who  distinguished  himself  .at 
Charles  Knapp's  great  entertainment  in  1865,  the  cost  of  which 
yras  $15,000.  Welcker  supplied  the  food  for  Mr.  Knapp's  last 
entertainment,  in  1867,  at  the  I  St.  mansion,  now  occupied  by 
Sir  Edward  Thornton.  There  are  five  cooks  in  all  at  Welcker's, 
and  the  establishment  employs  thirty  servants.  During  the 
past  session  he  has  given  at  least  two  dinner  parties  a  day, 
averaging  twelve  guests  at  each,  and  each  costing  upwards  of 
1100. 

The  best  fish  m  the  waters  of  Washington  is  the  Spanish 
mackerel,  which  ascends  the  Potomac  as  high  as  Wicomico 
river.  They  come  as  late  as  August,  and  bring  even  five  dol- 
lars a  pair  when  quite  fresh. 

Brook  trout,  propagated  artificially,  Welcker  thinks  lack 
flavor.  He  obtains  his  from  Brooklyn,  but  says  that  there  are 
trout  in  the  Virginia  streams  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 

Freezing-boxes,  or  freezing-houses,  such  as  are  established  in 
Fulton  Market,  New  York,  do  not  exist  in  Washington.  These 
keep  fish  solid  and  pure  for  the  entire  season.  The  inventor  of 
them  is  a  Newfoundland  man,  and  he  proposes  to  put  them  up 
in  Washington  for  $300  a  piece. 

Welcker  says  that  tlie  articles  in  which  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia excels  all  other  places  are  celery^  asparagus,  and  lettuce. 
The  potatoes  and  carrots  hereabouts  he  does  not  esteem.  The 
beef  is  inferior  to  the  Virginia  mutton,  which  he  thinks  is  the 
best  in  the  world — better  than  the  English  Southdown.  Poto- 
mac snipe  and  canvas-back  ducks  Welcker  thinks  the  best  in 
the  world,  and  the  oysters  of  Tangier,  York  river,  and  Eliza- 
beth river  he  considers  unexcelled  by  any  in  the  world.  The 
Virginia  partridge  and  the  pheasant, — which  are  the  same  as 
the  northern  quail  and  the  partridge, — Welcker  also  holds  to  be 
of  the  most  delicious  description. 

Our  markets,  he  says,  are  dearer  than  those  of  New  York 


VARIOUS   PRICES.  119 

and  Baltimore,  and  less  variously  and  fully  stocked.  The  mar- 
ket system  here  requires  organization,  being  carried  on  by  a 
multitude  of  small  operators  who  are  too  uninformed  about 
prices  to  institute  a  competitive  system,  and  hence  it  often  hap- 
pens that  potatoes  are  sold  at  one  place  for  $1.50  a  bushel,  am 
somewhere  near  by  for  only  fifty  cents  a  bushel.  His  marke^ 
bill  will  average  during  the  session,  $600  a  week,  and  some- 
times rises  to  $300  a  day. 

The  most  expensive  fisheries  on  the  Potomac  rent  for  about 
$6,000  a  year.  Messrs.  Knight  &  Gibson,  who  have  the  Long 
Bridge  fishery,  opposite  Washington,  paying  $2,000  a  year  for 
it,  pay  also  $6,000  for  a  fishery  near  Matthias  Point,  about 
seventy  miles  down  the  Potomac.  Knight  &  Gibson  keep  a 
fish  stand  in  the  Center  market. 

The  first  shad  which  reach  the  North  come  from  Savannah, 
and  bring  in  the  month  of  February  as  much  as  $6  a  pair. 
Alexandria  is  the  chief  mart  for  saving  and  salting  shad. 
Gangs  are  often  brought  from  Baltimore,  Frederick,  and  Phila* 
delphia  to  man  the  shad  boats,  and  five  miles  of  seine  are  fre- 
quently played  out.  The  black  bass  in  the  Potomac  river  were 
put  in  at  Cumberland  several  years  ago,  and  have  propagated 
with  astonishing  fecundity.  How  much  nobler  was  the  exper- 
iment of  this  benefactor  of  our  rivers  than  the  wide  spread 
appetite  for  destructiveness  we  see  everywhere  manifested. 

The  most  expensive  dish  furnished  by  Welcker  is  Philadel- 
phia capon  au  sauce  Croddard,  stufifed  with  truffles,  named  for 
the  celebrated  surgeon  Goddard  of  Philadelphia.  The  best 
capons  come  from  New  Jersey,  but  good  ones  are  raised  in  the 
region  of  Frederick,  Md.  The  capon  is  probably  the  most 
delicious  of  domestic  fowls,  attaining  the  size  of  the  turkey,  but 
possessing  the  delicate  flesh  and  flavor  of  the  chicken.  Truf- 
fles cost  eight  dollars  a  quart  can,  and  four  dollars  and  a-half  the 
pint  can.  They  come  from  France  and  North  Italy,  and  grow 
on  the  roots  of  certain  trees.  Truffle  dogs  and  boars  are 
used  to  discover  them,  and  the  boars  wear  wire  muzzles  to 
keep  them  from  eating  the  precious  parasites.     Truffles  look 


120  STYLE   AND   EXTRAVAGANCE. 

like  small  potatoes,  except  that  they  are  jet  black  through  and 
through.  The  capon  is  boiled  and  served  with  white-wine 
sauce  and  with  sweet  breads.  - 

Take  next  for  an  example  the  pnces  which  we  receive  in  the 
Arlington,  which  is  a  small  hotel,  with  a  capacity  for  no  more 
than  three  hundred  and  twenty-five  persons. 

Senator  Cameron  paid  for  himself  and  wife  $450  per  month, 
and  had  but  two  rooms.  Senator  Fenton  had  a  parlor,  two 
bedrooms,  and  an  office,  and  paid  $1,000  per  month.  Mr.  S. 
S.  Cox  and  wife,  paid  $250  per  week,  and  he  gave  a  buffet 
supper,  for  one  hundred  persons,  which  cost  him  $1,500.  Mr. 
W.  S.  Huntington,  gave  the  Japanese  the  finest  spread  ever  set 
in  the  Arlington  Hotel ;  there  were  only  twenty  persons,  and 
he  paid  $1,000.  Dr.  Helmbold  paid  $96  per  day,  and  his  bill 
for  two  weeks  was  about  $1,600.  A  parlor,  and  three  bed- 
rooms in  the  second  story  of  the  Arlington,  with  a  small  family 
occupying  them,  are  worth  $450  per  week,  during  the  season  ; 
and  one  guest  here  pays  for  a  parlor,  bedroom,  and  bathroom, 
$300  per  month. 

At  the  Delevan  House,  Albany,  Dr.  Gautier  used  to  pay  $375 
per  week,  and  General  Darling,  with  a  parlor,  three  bedrooms, 
and  four  persons,  paid  $400.  The  hotel  at  Lake  George,  had 
37,000  on  the  register  last  season,  in  four  months  ;  it  took  in 
that  space  of  time  $294,000,  and  the  net  profits  were  $52,000. 

The  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  in  New  York,  rents  for  $200,000  a 
year,  including  the  stores  beneath  it.  The  St.  Nicholas  rents 
for  $95,000,  although  it  cost  but  $425,000.  Mr.  A.  T.  Stewart 
has  just  rented  to  William  M.  Tweed,  the  Metropolitan  Hotel, 
New  York,  for  $65,000  a  year,  to  put  his  son,  Richard  Tweed, 
into  business  as  a  landlord  ;  and  the  Lelands,  who  go  out,  paid 
$75,000. 

The  cheapest  piece  of  hotel  property,  in  point  of  rent,  in  this 
country,  is  the  Brevoort  House,  New  York,  which  rents  for 
$27,500,  and  has  three  owners ;  it  is  kept  on  the  European 
plan,  excepting  the  tahle  d'  liote,  which  it  does  not  keep  up,  as 
it  has  made  its  reputation  on  the  best  cuisine  in  the  world. 


BALL  TO   PRINCE  ARTHUR.  121 

One  evening  in  1870  the  Capitol  of  the  nation  did  itself  credit, 
by  heartily  welcoming  one  of  the  young  sons  of  the  Queen  of 
England.  The  opportunity  was  a  ball  given  by  the  British 
Minister,  Thornton,  to  Prince  Arthur,- probably  with  the  origi- 
nal motive  of  making  his  visit  agreeable  to  the  young  man,  by 
showing  him  the  pretty  girls  in  their  most  becoming  dresses, 
and  giving  him  a  convenient  chance  to  speak  to  them,  as  a 
young  man  likes  to  speak  to  a  fine  girl,  intimately,  and  agreea- 
bly. Nothing  has  ever  been  invented  like  a  dance,  to  bring  the 
young  folks  together.  The  story  of  Cinderella's  slipper  turns, 
upon  going  to  the  Prince's  ball ;  and  I  suppose  that,  so  long  as 
human  nature  remains  what  it  always  has  been.  Princes'  balls 
will  be  popular,  and  Princes  the  type  of  all  that  is  noble  and 
exalted.  Jones  is  called  the  prince  of  caterers,  and  Simon 
the  prince  of  sleeping-car  conductors,  and  if  the  term  be  a 
compliment  when  it  has  no  reality  in  it,  how  really  infatuating 
must  be  a  true  Prince,  born  of  the  Queen,  peer  above  the 
highest,  with  jealous  mysteries  of  blood,  and  a  birthright  which 
will  keep  respect  and  inspire  superstition,  long  after  its  wearer 
is  broken  down  in  character,  and  ruined  in  purse.  The  most 
decided  Republican  and  Democrat,  though  he  may  sneer  at 
Princes  and  deprecate  attention  to  them,  is  apt  to  feel  the 
strange  magnetism  of  the  name  and  the  office,  for  it  is  an 
admonition  of  antique  times  and  government,  a  word  of  spell, 
signifying  to  the  ear  at  least,  the  issue  of  those  whose  love  and 
nuptials  affected  a  realm,  a  period,  or  a  world.  Tliis  Prince  is 
still  a  Prince,  though  not  a  powerful  one — a  far-off  son,  with 
elder  brothers  between  him  and  a  throne, — and  perhaps  he  has 
had  reason  to  feel  the  distance  at  which  he  stands  from  favor ; 
therefore,  it  was  gentle  in  us,  who  had  treated  his  high-born 
brother  with  such  opulence  of  incense  and  favor,  to  be  no  colder 
towards  young  Arthur.  His  father  and  mother  were  exception- 
ally chaste,  as  affectionate  as  wife  and  man  in  two  sensual  and 
selfish  lives  could  be.  His  mother  wrote  with  her  hand,  a  letter 
of  sympathyto  the  widow  of  our  most  precious  President.  The 
office  of  Prince  in  our  day  is  reduced  to  such  small  political 
6 


122  STYLE   AND   EXTRAVAGANCE. 

figure,  that  we  could  do  no  harm  to  monarchy,  by  showing 
republican  bad  manners  to  this  young  gentleman.  And  we  owe 
it  to  our  high  place  amongst  nations  to  do  cheerful  hospitality 
to  any  Prince  or  ruler,  well-behaved,  who  comes  amongst  us 
with  frank  confidence  in  our  good  will  and  good  breeding. 

I  write  this  down,  because  it  is  always  easy  and  tempting  to 
sneer  at  Princes  ;  and  when  this  young  man  came  to  the  Capi- 
tal, I  had  an  itching  to  say  something  that  would  make  you 
laugh  about  him.  There  is  really  no  reason,  however,  for  any 
disparagement,  because  the  good  sense  of  our  guest  and  our 
people,  has  been  displayed  during  his  visit.  If  any  low  fellow 
has  said  anything  coarse  in  his  presence,  I  have  not  heard  of  it. 
He  has  been  subjected  to  a  round  of  official  dinners  and  recep- 
tions, which  I  would  not  have  passed  through  for  a  hundred 
dollars  a  day,  and  he  has  kept  himself  patient  and  obliging  all 
the  time.  More  than  that,  he  is  a  young  man,  and  can't  help 
being  a  Prince.     So  good  luck  to  him  ! 

Mrs.  Thornton,  like  the  first  walking  lady  in  a  comedy, 
gathered  up  her  moire  antique  dress  with  the  satin  trail,  close 
to  the  blue  satin  panier,  and  surrounded  with  Apollos  of  lega- 
tion, each  looking  like  a  silver-enamelled  angel  out  of  a  valen- 
tine, accomplished  the  descent  of  the  stairs,  treading  all  the 
way  upon  scarlet  drugget,  and  helped  by  the  laurel-entwined 
balusters. 

At  the  foot  was  the  Prince,  dressed  in  the  uniform  of  the 
British  Rifles, — dark  sack  coat,  double-breasted,  buttoned  to 
the  throat,  and  well  trimmed  and  frogged  along  the  lappels ; 
tight,  dark-colored  pantaloons,  with  a  stripe,  strapped  over 
patent  leather  boots ;  a  steel-sheathed  dress  sword,  at  his  side  ; 
an  infantry  cap  in  his  hand ;  a  little  cartridge  box,  like  a 
tourist's  glass,  strapped  across  his  shoulder ;  and  what  shone 
and  flashed  like  a  streak  of  day-light  through  him,  was  a  huge 
jewelled  star,  the  insignia  of  the  Garter.  This  latter,  perhaps 
the  symbol  of  the  highest  nobility  in  Christendom,  was  more 
observed  than  the  clear  skinned,  rosy  face  of  the  young  man, 
his  brown  hair,  good  teeth,  and  obedient  and  intelligent  eye. 


STYLE  AND   EXTRAVAGANCE.  123 

His  clothes  clung  almost  as  closely  to  him  as  his  skin,  and  while 
he  was  one  of  the  most  plainly-dressed  persons  conspicuous 
upon  the  floor,  this  fact  alone  made  him  somewhat  eminent. 
There  was  that,  besides,  which  gave  him  beauty  and  character 
beyond  the  star  that  threw  a  hundred  sheets  of  light  every  way 
he  turned ;  the  fine  distinction  of  ruddy  youthfulness,  made 
modest  and  interesting  by  being  placed  in  such  prominence. 
If  a  young  man  knows  how  to  feel  publicity,  and  yet  bear  him- 
self well  under  it,  so  that  there  is  a  nice  mingling  of  self-relianco 
and  sensitiveness,  the  effect  upon  a  crowd  is  to  get  him  hearty 
sympathy — the  next  thing  to  admiration. 

Arthur  gave  Mrs.  Thornton  his  arm,  and  escorted  her  to 
the  ball  room.  The  Cupids  out  of  the  valentines,  the  Prince's 
followers,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  little  suite  and  embassy  joined 
in  behind,  making  quite  a  spangled  procession,  as  if  the  gas 
fixtures  were  going  to  a  party  in  company  with  the  window 
curtains.  As  they  all  came  along  together,  gold  ramrod  and 
satin  drapery,  the  band  in  the  gallery  struck  up,  "  God  save 
the  Queen !"  Then  the  people  sitting  in  cane  chairs  on  both 
sides  of  the  long  hall  stood  up,  and  ceased  waving  their  fans. 
The  shoe  blacks  and  darkeys  in  the  street  below,  looked  up  at 
the  flaming  windows,  and  said  interjections,  and  danced  steps 
of  involuntary  jigs,  and  said  out  of  their  malicious  little  spirits : 
"  Shoo  Fly." 

Arthur,  witli  Mrs.  Thornton  still  on  his  arm,  walked  the  whole 
length  of  the  hall  to  the  carpeted  platform,  when  he  turned 
about,  and  waited  modestly  till  the  music  ceased.  Then  he 
shook  hands  with  many  folks  standing  round,  whom  he  remem- 
bered, or  thought  he  did.  Elphinstone,  his  aid,  was  covered 
all  over  with  medals  of  daring,  gained  probably,  by  such  victo- 
ries as  this,  and  he  wore  the  gorgeous  uniform  of  his  red- 
complexioned  nation.  Picard,  another  aid,  wore  the  English 
artillery  uniform.  They  looked  well,  as  Englishmen  look — a 
sort  of  stiffened-up  suggestion  of  manhood,  with  indications  of 
skye  terrier  fringing  out. 

Ono  of  the  romances  of  Washington  city  was  recently  enacted 


124  STYLE  AND   EXTRAVAGANCES. 

in  the  Diplomatic  Corps.  For  nearly  thirty  years  Baron  Gerolt 
served  the  interests  of  Prussia  at  Washington  city,  and  he  lived 
long  enough  to  rear  native-born  American  children  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Capitol,  one  of  whom  married  Mr.  Rangabe,  the 
Greek  minister.  Gerolt  owed  his  appointment  to  this  country 
to  Baron  Humboldt,  who  had  been  entertained  by  him  while 
charge  in  Mexico,  and  who  recommended  him  to  the  King; 
of  Prussia.  Gerolt  was  an  affable,  republican  sort  of  man  in 
society,  fond  of  the  American  people,  and  his  social  associates 
were  men  like  Charles  Sumner  and  others,  who  inclined  him 
towards  the  Federal  side  in  the  war  of  the  rebellion.  He  prob- 
ably got  considerable  credit  for  original  principle  during  the 
war,  when  he  was  really  subordinate  to  acquaintances  ot  a 
stronger  will,  who  impressed  the  claims  of  the  North  upon  him. 
It  is  charged  that,  at  home,  he  was  somewhat  tyrannical  with 
his  family,  as  is  the  German  custom :  and  that  he  and  his  wife 
wished  to  assert  too  much  authority  over  their  children,  who 
had  inhaled  the  breath  of  the  Western  hemisphere.  Whatever 
the  interior  side  of  his  life  might  have  been,  Gerolt  is  remem- 
bered enthusiastically  by  some  of  the  best  people  in  Washing- 
ton, Republicans  and  Democrats  alike.  He  resides  at  Linz, 
near  Bonn,  in  Rhenish  Prussia,  and  is  permanently  out  of  the 
diplomatic  service  of  North  Germany. 

The  Gerolts,  although  Germans,  are  Catholics,  and  the  girls 
were  strictly  brought  up  under  the  tuition  of  the  priests  at 
Georgetown.  Bertha,  the  youugest  daughter  of  the  Baron,  now 
abou,t  twenty-three  years  of  age,  and  a  very  rich  and  handsome 
type  of  the  young  German  girl,  fell  in  love,  three  or  four  years 
a»;o,  with  her  father's  Secretary  of  Legation,  a  tall,  handsome, 
dashing  and  somewhat  reckless  Prussian,  and  a  connection  or 
relative  of  Bismarck.  This  young  Secretary  belonged  to  a  fine 
old  Brandenburg  Protestant  family,  which  had  decided  notions 
against  forming  Catholic  alliances.  The  young  gentleman 
would  have  fallen  heir,  in  time,  to  large  estates  in  North  Prus- 
sia ;  but  these  were  in  some  manner,  as  it  is  stated,  made  con- 
ditional  upcn  his  keeping  up  the   ancestral  Lutheran  faith. 


ROMANCE   AT  THE   CAPITOL.  125 

Tins  young  Prussian  chap,  you  may  recollect  as  being  the  an- 
tagonist of  one  of  our  ministers,  Lawrence  of  Central  America, 
some  two  or  three  years  ago,  when  the  two  met  on  what  is 
called  the  field  of  honor,  exchanged  shots,  and  then  patched  up 
the  fight  without  bloodshed.  He  paid  court  to  Bertha  Gerolt, 
and  she  was  intensely  enamored  of  him.  In  order  to  make  the 
nuptials  easy  on  both  sides,  Gerolt  applied  to  the  Catholic 
Church  authorities  for  an  indulgence,  or  something,  warranting 
the  marriage  of  this  hereditary  Protestant  with  his  Catholic 
daughter ;  but  as  it  was  specified  that  the  children  issuing  from 
such  marriage  were  to  be  brought  up  Protestants,  the  Roman 
dignitaries  refused.  Gerolt,  who  appears  sincerely  to  have 
Avished  to  please  his  child,  had  also  intentions  upon  the  Pope  ; 
but  while  these  ecclesiastical  efforts  were  being  made,  the  do- 
mestic correspondence  between  the  Secretary  and  his  mother 
in  Germany,  and  some  ensuing  letters  from  Madame,  growing 
warmer  and  more  indignant  from  time  to  time,  had  the  effect 
of  racking  the  poor  girl's  feelings  ;  and,  in  the  end,  the  hand- 
some Prussian  went  home.  This  is  an  end  to  the  matter  up  to 
the  present.  Bertha  Gerolt  refused  to  accompany  either  her 
father  or  mother  to  Germany,  and  has  retired  to  the  George- 
town Convent,  where,  some  say,  she  will  take  the  last  veil ;  and 
others  that  she  will  repent  after  a  while,  and  reappear  in  the 
•world. 

Opinion  is  divided  in  this  city  as  to  why  Gerolt  was  remanded 
to  his  own  countr3\  Some  say  that  he  suffered  certain  indigni- 
ties at  the  hands  of  our  State  Department.  Others  allege  that 
he  was  insufficient  particularly  about  the  time  that  American 
arms  were  shipped  to  France  to  be  used  against  the  Prussians. 
It  is  said  that,  on  that  occasion,  Bismarck  asked  Mr.  Bancroft 
why  our  goverment  permitted  such  things  ;  and  Bancroft,  to 
make  it  easy  for  himself,  retorted  that  there  was  Baron  Gerolt 
in  Washington,  and,  if  he  had  been  attending  to  his  business,  the 
arms  would  have  been  detained.  Others  say  that  Catacazy 
drew  Gerolt  into  an  intrigue,  and  got  him  to  work  against  the 
late  treaty  which  wo  made  about  the  Alabama  claims.     What^ 


126  STYLE   AND   EXTRAVAGANCE. 

ever  the  facts,  the  Baron  has  gone  for  good,  and  his  admirers 
here  are  preparing  to  forward  him  an  elaborate  service  of  sil- 
ver, to  show  that  what  he  did  for  the  country  in  its  crisis  is 
remembered  at  least  by  its  private  citizens. 

You  have  many  a  pretty  girl  in  the  West  who  would  be  ex- 
cited if  the  prospect  were  held  out  to  her  of  marrying  the  Por- 
tuguese Secretary  of  Legation.  Yet  a  Portuguese  person  of 
nearly  that  description  was  content  to  marry  a  negro  girl  the 
other  day,  at  the  Capital  to  which  he  was  accredited.  The  Pe- 
ruvian minister's  wife  was  raised  here ;  and  the  former  Russian 
minister  married  the  pretty  daughter  of  a  boarding-house  keeper 
at  Georgetown.  Yet  were  any  of  them  happier,  or  even  richer  ? 
I  doubt  it  much.  One  New  Year's  day  I  saw  a  beautiful 
woman,  reared  here,  who  is  soon  to  go  to  Russia  for  life,  and 
consort  with  candle  eaters  in  a  cold  empire  where  the  flag  that 
was  the  pride  of  our  babyhood  does  not  float,  where  the 
music  and  the  language  we  love  is  not  spoken,  and  middle  age, 
and  old  age,  and  her  children  must  be  given  to  a  people  who 
can  never  know  her  like  her  countrymen.  It  is  strange  to  see 
women  deluded  into  these  alliances  by  some  high  fangled  echo 
of  a  word,  or  a  fashion-plate.  As  a  rule,  these  foreigners  ac- 
credited to  tlie  Capital  of  the  United  States  are  either  politicians 
of  the  third  class  around  the  governments  of  their  countries,  or 
courtiers  of  the  third  class.  An  European  courtier,  reduced  t» 
his  essentials,  is  a  pleasing  politician  around  his  Capital,  pres- 
sing to  be  provided  for,  fed,  and  rewarded.  He  has  passed 
through  the  same  straights,  shrewnesses,  and  triumphs  as  an 
American  politician,  held  up  somebody's  coat  tail,  been  some- 
body's brother-in-law,  owed  his  appointment  to  the  pretty  face 
of  a  sister,  or  he  has  written  up  the  side  of  some  patron,  in  a 
pamphlet  or  newspaper,  and  crowded  all  sail  to  be  furnished 
with  an  exchequer  in  other  parts.  When  an  American  girl, 
therefore,  marries ''  a  member  of  the  foreign  legation,"  she  mar- 
ries merely  a  politician  or  a  noodle  who  can  speak  only  bad 
English,  who  probably  marries  her  for  her  money  or  for  his 
ennui,  and  who  is  habituated  to  having  mistresses  at  home. 


MARRYING   FOREIGN   MINISTERS.  127 

I  am  not  speaking  of  anybody,  nor  of  everybody,  in  the 
foreign  legations  at  Washington,  when  I  thus  produce  the  com- 
parative light  of  fact  and  experience  upon  them  ;  but  as  a 
general  rule,  I  would  not  take  a  turn  next  door,  to  see  a  mem- 
ber of  legation. 

We  know,  by  observation  upon  him  at  home, — that  being  in  a 
white  and  gold  cocked  hat,  a  sword,  a  ruffled  shirt,  and  a  pair 
of  scarlet  and  gold  trousers,  who  came  up  before  the  President 
on  the  first  day  of  the  year,  and  bowed,  and  left  his  royal 
master's  condescensions. 

It  was  with  such  feelings, — while  recognizing  many  reverend 
and  excellent  gentlemen  among  the  foreign  ministers  at  a  levee, 
and  several  persons  of  talent  and  pursuit, — that  I  ran  my  eye 
along  the  gaily  attired  line, — the  romance  of  the  name,  and  tlie 
livery  gone  from  my  mind ;  while  at  the  head  of  our  State,  in 
plain  black,  stood  the  little  General  who  fought  bigger  battles 
than  any  of  their  Kings,  and  commanded  a  nation  of  men  with 
more  destiny  than  all  their  combined  States  possessed  antiquity. 

The  mystery  and  magic  of  the  foreign  Service  and  uniform, 
are  kept  alive  entirely  by  our  American  women.  We  men  do 
not  believe  in  them.  If  Miss  Jane  Smith,  or  the  widow 
Tompkins,  marries  Signer  Straddlebanjo,  she  ascends,  in  the 
female  mind,  to  the  seventh  heaven  of  respect,  while  eating  yet 
the  same  pork  chops,  and  taking  milk  from  the  same  pump  and 
milkman. 

Many  of  these  gentlemen  have  found  good  wives  and  com- 
fortable homes  among  us.  You  are  aware  that  the  famous 
French  Minister,  Genet,  set  this  example  early,  by  retreating 
from  tlie  contempt  of  Washing-ton,  and  the  frown  of  Jefferson, 
into  the  bosom  of  the  Clinton  family,  and  never  returned  to 
France  at  all.  That  famous  old  rooster  married  three  times, 
if  I  am  well  informed,  in  the  United  States,  and  some  time  ago, 
when  I  was  introduced  in  New  York  to  a  lawyer  and  city 
politician  named  Genet,  I  said  to  him  musingly : 

"  Why !  that  was  the  name  of  the  great  lettre  de  marque 
Frenchman!" 


128  STYLE   AND   EXTRAVAGANCE. 

"  My  grandfather  !"  replied  the  politician  of  Tammany  Hall. 

When  Mr.  Johnson  shoved  his  friend,  the  Adjutant-General, 
through  the  tenure-of-office  act,  he  had  little  idea  how  he  was 
hastening  the  marriage  ceremony  of  little  Bibbapron.  Bibb- 
apron  had  fixed  his  engagement  day  for  the  first  of  July,  so  as 
to  be  in  New  York  on  the  Fourth,  and  set  off  some  firecrackers, 
after  which  he  expected  to  make  some  good  resolutions  to  regu- 
late family  life  at  Saratoga  Springs.  But  people  who  are 
engaged,  are  always  impatient.  They  are  left  alone  together 
a  good  deal,  and  find  waiting  to  be  a  sort  of  dissipation.  It  is 
neither  pursuit  nor  possession,  neither  fish  nor  flesh.  It  is  the 
tenderest,  most  quarrelsome,  most  tantalized,  most  disheartened, 
most  forebode- ful  period  of  love.  No  wonder  that  Bibbapron, 
when  he  heard  of  the  "  High  Court  of  Impeachment,'*  the 
solemnity  of  the  spectacle,  and  the  great  learning  of  the 
managers  and  counsel,  had  but  to  suggest  to  Molly  what  a 
delightful  time  it  Avould  be  to  visit  Washington,  when  she 
embraced  himself,  and  the  occasion.  The  milliner  was  hurried 
up.  Ma  was  persuaded  that  Summer  was  an  unhealthy  season 
in  the  East.  The  little  marriage  ceremony  was  not  held  in  the 
church,  but  in  the  parlor  at  home,  and  the  clergyman's  feo 
reduced  somewhat  in  consequence.  Bibbapron's  papa  gave  his 
son  a  letter  to  Congressman  Starch,  and  the  express  train  saw 
Ihe  pair  tucked  in,  the  last  tear  shed,  and  the  town  of  Skyuga 
fade  from  the  presence  of  its  prettiest  girl.  It  is  to  tell  all  the 
engaged  folks  how  to  get  to  Washington  and  how  to  see  it,  that 
I  reluctantly  took  Mrs.  Bibbapron's  diary  and  copy  a  few  pages 
from  it.  They  are  strictly  accurate,  for  which  the  other  corres- 
pondents don't  care  to  use  them.  Mrs.  Bibbapron  has  a  way 
of  italicising  every  other  word  in  diary,  which  I  don't  care  to 
imitate,  and  she  makes  a  very  pretty  period  with  a  tear,  which, 
of  course,  I  cannot  do.  The  diary  was  a  present  from  her 
younger  sister ;  it  had  an  almanac  in  it  and  blank  washing  lists, 
with  quotations  from  the  poets  under  each  date.    Here  it  begins : 

"  April  22, 1868 — Dear  me,  how  tired  !  I  am  in  Washington, 
the  Capital  of  the  United  States.     It's  not  larger  than  New 


GETTING  TICKETS.  129 

York,  my  husband,  Alonzo,  says,  which  I  think  is  a  great  shame. 
Government  ought  to  make  it  bigger  right  away,  or  have  it 
somewhere  where  it  would  get  bigger,  itself.  The  maps  are  all 
incorrect  about  Washington,  where  jt  is  represented  by  a  great 
many  dots,  while  all  the  other  towns  have  only  one  dot.  We 
went  to  Willard's  Hotel,  and,  in  order  to  give  us  a  fine  view 
of  the  city,  they  put  us  up  in  the  top  story.  We  went  down  to 
breakfast  at  nine  o'clock,  and  called  for  oysters,  of  course. 
They  tasted  as  if  they  had  been  caught  in  warm  water.  The 
fresh  shad  was  quite  a  bone  to  pick.  My  dear  husband  took  a 
cocktail  before  breakfast.  He  says  it's  quite  the  thing  here. 
Senator  Tatterson  joined  him,  he  says.  I  hope  my  husband 
will  never  be  a  drunkard!" 

N.  B. — He  says  the  Senator  took  Ms  straight. 

Half-past  ten  o'clock. — Alonzo,  my  darling  husband,  has 
been  to  see  Congressmen  Starch,  and  brought  him  into  the  ladies' 
parlor.  Pa  can't  abide  Congressman  Starch,  because  they 
differ  in  politics ;  but  Alonzo's  Pa  is  a  Republican,  and  lent 
Mr.  Starch  a  horse  and  wagon  to  bring  up  voters.  I  think  it 
was  very  generous  of  the  Congressman  to  ask  so  particularly 
about  Pa's  health.  He  gave  me  two  tickets  for  the  great  trial. 
He  says  they  are  very  scarce,  and  old  ones  are  sold  for  relics 
for  ever  so  much  money.  The  managers  buy  the  old  ones  to 
paste  their  photographs  on  them,  and  present  them  to  the 
Historical  Societies.  Congressman  Starch  says  he  lost  his  best 
constituent  to  give  me  these  tickets,  but  told  me  to  be  particular 
not  to  tell  Pa  about  it.  He  says  Johnson  is  the  great  criminal 
of  the  age,  and  ought  to  have  been  impeached  before  he  was 
born.  There  is  no  doubt,  he  says,  that  it  was  Johnson  in  dis- 
guise who  murdered  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  then  bribed  Booth  with 
a  clerkship  to  be  killed  in  his  place.  He  says  that  General 
Butler  offers  to  prove  that  Boston  Corbett  was  only  Andrew 
Johnson,  who  killed  Booth  to  keep  him  from  telling.  Poor 
Booth !  He  died  saying  '  Poor  Carlotta  1'  I  never  sing  that 
song  but  tears  come  to  my  eyes,  and  I  think  of  my  husband. 
Alonzo  will  never  kill  the  President.  He  was  brought  up  a 
Baptist. 


130  STYLE   AND   EXTRAVAGANCE. 

Five  o'clock,  P.  M.  I  have  seen  all  the  great  patriots  of  our 
country.  Mr.  Sumner  is  the  greatest  of  them  all,  his  hair  is 
so  exquisite.  Mr.  Brooks,  of  New  York,  who  gave  him  such 
a  beating,  was  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  wearing  spectacles. 
He  is  a  newspaper  editor,  and  drives  a  pair  of  cream-colored 
horses.  He  must  be  a  dreadful  man,  but  is  right  good 
looking.  Mr.  Sumner  forgives  him,  because  he  prints  his 
speeches. 

I  am  going  too  fast,  but  really,  I  have  so  much  to  do  to-day, 
that  I  don't  know  where  to  begin.  "We  took  the  horse  cars  to 
the  Capitol,  and  went  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  The 
National  Hotel  looks  sick,  ever  since  the  celebrated  disease 
there.  I  was  surprised  to  see  so  many  negroes  in  the  car. 
Congress  compels  them  to  ride,  in  order  to  carry  out  the  Civil 
Rights  bill.  The  poor  souls  look  dreadfully  as  if  they  wanted  to 
walk  some.  Dear  me  !  I  love  to  walk  since  I  am  married.  I 
can  take  my  husband's  arm  then  and  pinch  him.  It  seems  to  me 
that  we  ain't  happy  unless  we  pinch  those  we  love ! 

The  Capitol  is  the  grandest,  most  wonderful  building  in  the 
whole  world.  It  is  all  marble,  with  a  splendid  dome  above  it, 
and  a  perfect  hide-and-seek  of  aisles,  passages,  and  gorgeous 
stairways.  It  looks  like  a  marble  quarry  in  blossom.  They 
wash  it  every  night,  and  the  government  officers  spit  it  yellow 
every  day.  Alonzo  says  tobacco  is  bought  by  the  ream,  and 
charged, to  "stationery."  He  says  that  this  is  quite  right, 
because  when  the  members  have  a  chaw  in  their  mouths  they 
speak  less  and  save  time.  I  hope  my  husband  will  never  chew 
tobacco.  Government  ought  to  pass  a  law  against  it,  and  get 
the  women  to  enforce  it.  On  the  top  of  the  Capitol  is  a  statue 
of  Pocahontas,  flying  a  kite ;  I  should  think  it  ought  to  be 
Benjamin  Franklin,  but  tliey  have  got  him  inside  in  marble. 
It  will  take  millions  and  millions  to  furnish  the  Capitol.  I  sup- 
pose they  will  have  nothing  but  Axminster  carpets  and  oiled 
walnut.  In  the  dome  of  the  Capitol  there  are  beautiful  pic- 
tures. I  liked  the  marriage  of  Pocahontas  the  best.  She  wears 
her  hair  plain,  and  her  dress  looks  like  a  bolster  case.     The 


A  bride's  diary.  131 

Indian  women  have  beautiful  figures  but  their  clothes  are  dow- 
dy. Some  of  them  in  this  picture  wear  goose  feathers  for  full 
dress,  and  look  to  have  caught  cold;  But  that's  what's  ex- 
pected of  a  bridesmaid.     She  dresses  for  a  consumption ! 

We  got  good  seats  next  to  the  Diplomatic  Gallery.  Alonzo 
pointed  out  the  Russian  Minister  and  his  wife  to  me ;  we  ad- 
mired them  very  much  till  we  heard  that  it  was  the  Minister's 
Coachman  a-nd  cook.  The  foreign  Ministers  send  their  servants 
here  when  they  want  their  gallery  to  look  genteel.  Theodore 
Tilton  was  distinguished  by  his  long  hair.  He  has  withdrawn 
the  nomination  of  Cliase,  and  ruined  the  Chief-Justice.  He 
looks  sad  about  it.  Congressman  Starch  showed  us  the  Chief- 
Justice,  a  man  like  Washington  in  holy  orders.  Mr.  Starch 
said  he  would  be  impeached  soon  with  all  the  Judges.  The 
Bench,  he  says,  is  rotten.  (Why  not  give  them  chairs  ?)  He 
said  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  Bench,  the  constitution,  which 
is  the  cause  of  all  this  trouble,  would  have  been  done  away 
with  long  ago.  Dear  me !  an  old  rotten  bench  ought  not  to 
keep  our  country  in  such  peril.  The  Senate  Chamber  is  all 
buff  and  gilt,  like  an  envelope  on  Valentine's  day.  There  is  a 
silver  ice  pitcher  on  the  table  of  the  President's  counsel,  which 
I  believe  is  plated.  I  wish  I  could  just  go  down  and  feel  of  it. 
They  say  fimt  the  Government  is  swindled  in  everything.  Per- 
haps the  coolest  swindle  is  ice  pitchers.  This  is  mean.  Wash- 
ington, Webster,  and  Mr.  Starch  must  be  incapable  of  it.  If 
my  husband  ever  comes  to  Congress  I  mean  to  work  him  a  pair 
of  slippers  in  red,  wdiite,  and  blue.  Then  he  can't  go  across 
the  street,  like  Mr.  Alwusbeery  to  drink  between  votes,  in  his 
stocking  feet. 

I  saw  Mrs.  Southworth,  the  great  novelist,  author  of  the 
"  Deserted  Step-Mother."  She  lives  at  Georgetown  in  a  haunt- 
ed boarding-house.  Her  health  is  good,  considering  what 
must  be  her  distress  of  mind,  say  two  hundred  pounds  without 
jewelry.  Her  dress  was  a  black  silk,  tabs  on  the  mantilla, 
and  angel-sleeves,  so  as  to  leave  space  to  swing  her  beautiful 
pen.     If  I  could  write  like  Mrs.  Southworth,  I  would  keep 


132  STYLE   AND   EXTRAVAGANCE. 

Alonzo,  my  darling  husband,  sitting  at  my  feet  in  tears  all  the 
time. 

Mrs.  Swizzlem,  the  colored  authoress  of  Mrs.  Keckley's  book, 
was  in  the  diplomatic  gallery  with  one  of  Mrs.  Lincoln's  dresses 
on,  counting  through  an  opera  glass  the  pimples  on  the  face  of 
one  of  the  Senators.  She  hates  his  wife,  Alonzo  says,  and 
ineans  to  worry  her.  f 

Mr.  Thornton,  the  British  Minister,  looks  very  much  worried.  ^ 
Congressman  Starch  says  that  Senator  Chandler  is  a  Fenian, 
tind  means  to  make  a  dreadful  speech  at  poor  Mr.  Thornton. 
Alonzo  is  afraid  it  will  miss  fire,  and  kill  some  innocent  per- 
son. Senator  Wade,  the  next  President,  looks  like  Martha 
Washington.  He  is  a  very  pious  man,  beloved  by  everybody, 
and  would  have  become  a  preacher  if  they  had  not  wanted  him 
so  bad  for  President. 

Twelve  A.  M !  Oh,  dear !  that  ever  I  was  married  !  Be 
still,  my  poor  soul !  I  have  heard  of  the  wickedness  of  men — 
now  I  know  it !  Last  night  T  heard  something  like  a  wheel- 
barrow coming  up  stairs.  It  seemed  to  fall  around  the  elbows 
and  upset  at  all  the  platforms.  It  tumbled  right  up  to  my 
room.  The  wheelbarrow  burst  right  through  the  door ;  first 
came  the  wheel  and  then  pitched  the  barrow  on  top  of  it.  The 
barrow  was  Congressman  Starch,  the  wheel  was — Alonzo.  They 
joined  themselves  together  again  and  wheeled  forward,  right 
up  onto  the  bed.  There  were  so  many  legs  and  so  much  motion 
and  hallooing  that  I  could  not  tell  my  husband  from  the  other. 
I  said,  however: 

"Merciful  Heavens! " 

To  this  replied  my  husband,  in  terms  like  the  following : 

"  Johnsing's  gone  up.  Starchy  threw  cashting  vote.  Mime 
going  tee  be  Conshul-General  under  Ben  Wade — all  hunk !  " 

Said  a  voic6,  proceeding,  as  I  conjectured,  from  the  owner  of 
that  pair  of  legs  which  did  not  wear  Alonzo's  trowsers  : 

"Yesh!  bet  your  Impartial  Justice  according  to  zhec  laws. 
Mime  going  ter  be  Secretary  thinteeryer !  " 

I  rang  the  bell  and  wept.     The  waiters  removed  the  Con- 


STYLE  AND   EXTRAVAGANCE.  133 

gressman.  My  husband  snored.  I  hope  the  bed  was  buggy 
for  he  deserved  it.  In  the  morning,  after  a  sleepless  night,  I 
heard  Alonzo  cry  : 

"  Miss  Bibbapron !     Congress  water !  " 

Now  I  know  where  this  dreadful  Congress  water  gets  its 
name.     It's  what  makes  Senators  tipsy. 

I  hope  the  Impeachment  trial  will  be  done  soon.  Congress- 
man Starch  shall  never  get  my  vote.  Oh !  that  I  should  be  a 
bride  and  bring  my  husband  to  Washington ! " 


Washington's  white  house  as  it  was  in  Philadelphia,  1790, 

CHAPTER    XI. 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE   AND  ITS   OCCUPANTS. 

The  President's  residence  down  to  1 800  was  of  a  floating 
character ;  now  in  New  York,  now  in  Philadelphia ;  and  the 
ladies  of  the  Executive  branch  of  the  government  were  very 
like  women  in  barracks  with  army  officers  ;  sometimes  sent 
into  damp  dwellings,  again  like  the  wives  of  Methodist  preach- 
ers, perpetually  waiting  for  ships  to  come  with  their  clothes  and 
carpets. 

Mrs.  John  Adams,  in  a  volume  of  letters,  edited  by  the  late 
Minister  to  England,  her  grandson,  which  I  have  found  in  the 
Congressional  Library,  gives  some  lively  sketches  of  a  Presi- 
dent's wife.  Yv^riting  to  her  married  daughter  in  the  latter 
part  of  November,  1790,  from  Philadelphia,  she  speaks  dole- 
fully of  her  quarters  and  those  of  the  ladies  of  the  Cabinet. 

"  Poor  Mrs.  Knox,  (wife  of  the  first  Secretary  of  War,)  is 
in  great  tribulation  about  her  furniture.  The  vessel  sailed  the 
day  before  the  storm  and  had  not  been  heard  of  on  Friday  last. 
I  had  a  great  misfortune  happen  to  my  best  trunk  of  clothei:. 
The  vessel  sprung  a  leak  and  my  trunks  got  wet  a  foot  high,  by 


MRS.    ADAMS'    DESCRIPTION.  135 

which  means  I  have  several  gowns  spoiled  ;  and  the  one  you 
(Mrs.  Smith)  worked  is  the  most  damaged,  and  a  black  satin — • 
the  blessed  effects  of  tumbling  about  the  world." 

After  a  while  the  City  of  Washington  was  laid  out,  and  in 
the  first  year  of  this  century,  Mrs.  John  Adams  started  for  the 
great  new  "  Palace  "  of  the  President.  The  whole  story  is  told 
in  a  letter  to  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Smith,  written  November  21st, 
1800.  It  is  notable  as  being  probably  the  first  letter  ever  writ- 
ten in  the  White  House  by  its  mistress  : 

"  I  arrived  here  Sunday  last,  and  without  meeting  with  any 
accident  worth  noticing,  except  losing  ourselves  when  we  left 
Baltimore,  and  going  eight  or  nine  miles  on  the  Frederick  road, 
by  which  means  we  were  obliged  to  go  the  other  eight  through 
woods,  where  we  wandered  two  hours  without  finding  a  guide 
or  the  path.  Fortunately  a  straggling  black  came  up  with  us, 
and  we  engaged  him  as  a  guide,  to  extricate  us  out  of  our  diffi- 
culty ;  but  woods  are  all  you  see  from  Baltimore  until  you  reach 
the  e'lty^  which  is  so  only  in  name.  Here  and  there  is  a  small 
cot,  without  a  glass  window,  interspersed  among  the  forests, 
through   which  you   travel   miles  without   seeing  any  human 

"  The  house  is  upon  a  grand  and  superb  scale,  requiring  about 
thirty  servants  to  attend  and  keep  the  apartments  in  proper 
order,  and  perform  the  ordinary  business  of  the  house  and 
stables — an  establishment  very  well  proportioned  to  the  Presi- 
dent's salary.  The  lighting  of  the  apartments  from  the  kitchen 
to  parlor  and  chambers,  is  a  tax  indeed ;  and  the  fires  we  are 
obliged  to  keep  to  secure  us  from  daily  agues  is  another  very 
cheering  comfort.  To  assist  us  in  this  great  castle,  and  render 
less  attendance  necessary,  bells  are  wholly  wanting,  not  one 
single  one  being  hung  through  the  whole  house,  and  promises 
are  all  you  can  obtain.  This  is  so  great  an  inconvenience  that 
1  know  not  what  to  do  or  how  to  do.  *  *  *  If  they  will 
put  up  some  bells  and  let  me  have  wood  enough  to  keep  fires, 
I  design  to  be  pleased.  Surrounded  with  forests,  can  you  be- 
lieve that  wood  is  not  to  be  had,  because  people  cannot  be 


136  WHITE   HOUSE   AND   ITS   OCCUPANTS. 

found  to  cut  and  cart  it  ?  *  *  *  Briesler  has  had  recourse 
to  coal ;  but  we  cannot  get  grates  made  and  set.  We  liave 
indeed  come  into  a  new  country.  You  must  keep  all  this  to 
yourself,  and  when  asked  how  I  like  it,  say  that  I  write  you  the 
situation  is  beautiful,  which  is  true. 

"  The  house  is  made  habitable,  but  there  is  not  a  single 
apartment  finished,  and  all  within-side,  except  the  plastering, 
has  been  done  since  Briesler  (the  steward)  came.  We  have 
not  the  least  fence,  yard  or  other  convenience  without,  and  the 
great  unfinished  audience-room  I  make  a  drying-room  of,  to 
hang  up  the  clothes  in.  The  principal  stairs  are  not  up,  and 
will  not  be  this  Winter.  Six  chambers  are  made  comfortable ; 
two  are  occupied  by  the  President  and  Mr.  Shaw ;  two  lower 
rooms,  one  for  a  common  parlor,  and  one  for  a  levee  room. 
Up  stairs  there  is  the  oval  room,  which  is  designed  for  the 
drawing-room,  and  has  the  crimson  furniture  in  it.  It  is  a  very 
handsome  room  now,  but  when  completed,  it  will  be  beautiful. 
If  the  twelve  years  in  which  this  place  has  been  considered  as 
the  future  seat  of  Government,  had  been  improved,  as  they 
would  have  been  in  New  England,  very  many  of  the  present 
inconveniences  would  have  been  removed." 

Mrs.  Adams,  writing  again  November  27th,  says  that :  "  Two 
articles  we  are  most  distressed  for ;  the  one  is  bells,  but  the 
more  important  is  wood.  Yet  you  cannot  see  wood  for  trees. 
We  have  only  one  cord  and  a  half  of  wood  in  this  house  where 
twelve  fires  are  constantly  required.  It  is  at  a  price,  indeed  ; 
from  four  dollars  it  has  risen  to  nine !  " 

Again,  Mrs.  Adams  shows  us  a  picture  of  distress  almost  as 
bad  as  a  Methodist  preacher's  wife's  experiences  : 

"  The  vessel  which  has  my  clothes  and  other  matters  is  not 
arrived.  The  ladies  are  impatient  for  a  drawing-room.  1  have 
no  looking-glasses  but  "  dwarfs"  for  this  house  ;  nor  a  twen- 
tienth-part  lamps  enough  to  light  it.  Many  things  were  stolen ; 
more  broken  by  removal ;  among  the  number  my  tea  china  is 
more  than  half  missing.     Georgetown  affords  nothing." 

Mrs.  Adams  was  a  preacher's  daughter,  married  young,  and 


THE  CABINET  CHAMIJER  IN  THE  WHITE   HOUSE,  WASHINGTON. 


JEFFERSON'S   HABITS.  137 

she  burst  into  tears  when  her  husband  got  his  first  nomination 
to  anything.  They  lived  together  fifty-three  years.  John  was 
the  son  of  a  rehgious  shoemaker,  and  himself  a  school-teacher. 
His  conceit  was  large,  his  thrift  equal  to  it,  and  all  the  Adamses 
since  his  day  liave  not  degenerated  from  these  standards.  They 
were  the  original  Yankees  of  the  White  House,  and  it  is  re- 
markable that  every  Northern  President  has  saved  some  of  his 
salary,  while  the  contrary  is  true  of  every  Southerner  but  one. 
They  kept  the  unfinished  mansion  in  a  righteous  sort  of  way, 
drank  a  good  deal  of  tea,  shopped  cheap,  went  to  church  through 
mud  and  snow,  and  the  plasterers  told  so  many  stories  about 
what  they  saw  through  the  cracks  that  Congress  elected  Adams 
out,  and  demanded  a  man  who  should  be  a  little  wicked  and 
swear  some.  Lemonade  and  oat-cakes  were  the  standard  lunch 
in  those  times. 

Jefferson  liked  his  social  glass  ;  he  used  darkeys  to  do  the 
chores  ;  he  had  to  pay  his  own  secretary,  like  everybody  else 
down  to  Jackson's  time,  provide  his  own  library,  and  meet 
deficits  out  of  his  own  pocket.*  His  wife,  who  had  been  a 
widow,  like  Mrs.  Washington,  died  long  before  his  accession, 
and  he  had  a  house  full  of  daughters  and  adopted  daughters. 
It  was  French  republican  simplicity  and  camp-meeting  court- 
ing. Jefferson  talked  with  everybody  freely,  disliked  clergy- 
men, never  had  an  opinion  but  he  ventilated  it ;  but  he  held 
more  than  his  own,  because  he  was  a  great  man,  without  affeo 

*It  is  common  saying  in  these  days,  that  it  costs  a  President  for  the  first  time 
more  than  $25,000  per  annum  to  live  in  Washington.  Mr.  Jefferson  wrote  in 
1807  :  "  I  find  on  a  review  of  my  affairs  here  as  they  will  stand  on  the  3d  of  March, 
that  I  shall  be  three  oi:  four  months'  salary  behindhand.  In  ordinary  cases,  this 
degree  of  arrearage  would  not  be  serious,  but  on  the  scale  of  the  establishment 
here,  it  amounts  to  seven  or  eight  thousand  dollars,  which  having  to  come  out  of 
my  private  funds,  will  be  felt  by  me  sensibly."  He  then  directs  his  commission 
merchant  to  obtain  a  loan  from  a  Virginia  bank,  and  adds :  "  I  have  been  under 
an  agony  of  mortification  *  ♦  *  Nothing  could  be  more  distressing 
to  me  than  to  leave  debts  here  unpaid,  if  indeed,  I  should  be  permitted  to  depart 
with  them  unpaid,  of  which  I  am  by  no  means  certain."  He  may  have  appre- 
hended from  tradesmens'  rapacity,  aided  by  political  hostility,  imprisonment  for 
debt. 


138  WHITE   HOUSE  AND   ITS   OCCUPANTS. 

tations.  In  those  days,  atheists,  painters,  editors,  Bohemians, 
and  carpet-baggers  of  all  sorts,  foreign  and  domestic,  made 
free  with  the  White  House.  The  President,  red-haired  and 
spindle-shanked,  read  all  the  new  poems,  admired  all  that  was 
antique  and  all  that  was  new,  but  nothing  between  times.  The 
White  House  was  hung  with  no  red  tape.  It  stood  all  this 
loose  invasion  because  there  was  a  real,  sincere  man  in  it. 

In  Mrs.  James  Madison  the  present  White  House  found  its 
brilliant  mistress,  albeit  she  had  been  brought  up  a  Quaker,  Mis- 
tress Dolly  Payne,  then  Mrs.  Todd,  widow,  and  at  last  the  wife 
of  Congressman  Madison,  who  had  been  jilted  early  in  life  by 
Miss  Floyd,  her  townswoman.  Madison  was  well  along  in 
years  when  he  married,  and  Mrs.  Madison  had  to  take  care  of 
him.  He  had  no  children.  The  place  was  clear  there  for  out- 
side company,  and  it  is  questionable  as  to  whether  the  house 
has  at  any  time  since  been  so  well  administered.  Madison  was 
a  diminished  and  watered  copy  of  Washington,  and  made  a 
good  parlor  ornament.  There  was  nothing  little  about  him, 
except  a  general  want  of  character,  compensated  for  by  a  good 
deal  of  respectability  Mrs.  Madison  made  the  big  house  ring 
with  good  cheer ;  dancing  was  lively,  as  in  Jefferson's  time ;  the 
lady  was  "  boss,"  and,  unlike  most  of  her  imitators,  had  the 
genius  for  it.  The  whole  cost  of  the  President's  house,  now 
perfectly  completed,  had  been  8333,307. 

After  the  British  burned  it,  the  total  cost  of  rebuilding,  and 
adding  two  porticoes,  $301,496.25.  The  burning  happened  so 
unexpectedly,  that  one  of  Mrs.  Madison's  great  dinners  w^as 
eaten  by  the  British,  all  smoking  as  they  found  it.  The  lady 
herself  cut  out  of  its  frame  a  cherished  portrait  of  Washington, 
still  preserved  in  the  mansion,  and  when  the  President  returned, 
they  opened  house  on  the  corner  of  Twentieth  street  and  the 
avenue,  near  the  "  circle,"  on  the  way  to  Georgetown.  After 
Madison  died,  his  widow  rented  a  house  opposite  the  White 
House,  and  kept  up  the  only  secondary,  or  ex-Presidential 
Court,  ever  held  in  Washington. 

Mr.  Monroe's  wife  was  a  fairly  wealthy  lady  of  New  York, 


THE  BLUE  KOOM  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE,  WASHINGTON- 


THE   WHITE    H0U3B. 


139 


and  he  came  to  the  Presidency  at  an  era  when  all  parties  har- 
monized. The  White  House  was  quite  a  court  in  his  day,  as 
he  had  an  interesting  family,  gave  great  dinners,  and  looked 
benevolently  through  his  blue  eyes,  at  all  the  receptions.  He 
had  no  brilliant  qualities,  and  therefore  had  no "  nonsense 
about  him."  By  this  time  the  White  House  had  been  all  re- 
stored and  furnished,  although  the  grounds  were  still  a  good 
deal  like  a  brick  yard.  Let  us  look  at  the  furniture  of  it  in 
those  days,  little  changed  down  to  the  period  of  Harriet  Lane 
and  Mrs.  Lincoln. 

James  Hoban  built  both  the  original  and  the  reconstructed 
White  House.  It  stands  on  ground  forty-four  feet  above  high 
water,  but  the  drainage  all  around  it  is  bad,  so  that  fever  and  ague 
may  be  caught  there  if  you  only  prepare  your  mind  to  get  them. 
A  small  chest  of  homoeopathic  medicines  in  the  house  is  a  sure 
preventative,  whetlier  you  take  them  or  not.     The  building  is 


THE   WHITE   HOUSE. 

one  hundred  and  seventy  feet  long  and  eighty-six  deep,  built  of  , 
free-stone  over  all.  There  is  an  Ionic  portico  in  front  and 
rear,  opening  upon  grounds  of  shade  and  lawn  which  are  open 
to  the  public  at  all  times.  The  front  portico  is  double,  so  as 
to  admit  folks  on  foot  and  carriages  also.  About  one-half  of 
the  upper  part  of  this  house  belongs  to  the  family  elected  to 
live  in  it,  and  also  some  of  the  basement ;  but  the  wliole  of  the 


140  WHITE   HOUSE   AND   ITS   OCCUPANTS. 

first  or  main  floor  is  really  public  property,  and  half  the  second 
floor  is  tlie  President's  business  office.  Therefore,  ladies,  you 
will  own  as  much  of  the  White  House  when  you  come  to  live 
in  it,  as  you  own  of  the  hotel  in  which  you  board. 

The  great  mansion  has  a  wide  hall  in  it,  a  stairway  on  one 
side,  leading  up  to  the  office-rooms,  and  at  the  bottom,  or,  to  be 
less  Cockney,  the  end  of  the  hall,  there  is  a  large  oval  room, 
opening  out  of  which  are  two  parlors,  left  and  right ;  go  through 
the  room  to  the  right  and  you  enter  the  great  dining-room ;  go 
through  the  room  to  the  left  and  you  enter  the  large  banqueting- 
room.  Now  see  the  size  of  these  rooms,  which  you  will  per- 
ceive  at  once  to  be  home-like  as  a  connected  series  of  meeting- 
houses : 

Hall  (entrance),  40  by  50  feet. 

Oval  room,  40  by  30  feet. 

Square  parlors  (left  and  right),  30  by  22  feet. 

Company  dining-room,  40  by  30  feet. 

Banqueting  Cor  East)  room,  80  by  40  feet. 

All  these  rooms  are  twenty-two  feet  high.  You  will  perceive 
that  they  are  eminently  cosy  and  contracted.  The  President's 
private  rooms  consist  of  a  great  barn-like  waiting-room,  and  two 
or  three  connecting  offices.  Let  us  see  how  these  rooms  were 
furnished  in  the  time  of  Monroe,  Adams,  and  Jackson ;  a  de* 
scription  which  is  nearly  perfect  for  to-day.  I  get  these  facts 
from  an  old  book,  defunct  since  1830,  called  "  Jonathan  Elliot's 
History  of  the  Ten  Mile  Square."  Oval-room,  crimson  flock 
paper,  with  deep  gilt  border ;  crimson  silk  chairs,  ditto  window 
curtains ;  one  great  piece  of  pattern  carpet  interwoven  with  arms 
of  the  United  States ;  tables  and  chimney-pieces  of  marble  ; 
two  huge  mirrors  and  a  cut-glass  chandelier.  Into  this  oval 
room  the  square  rooms  to  left  and  right  open  on  levee  nights, 
with  furniture  as  follows,  distributed  also  amongst  the  dining- 
rooms  :  Paper  ot  green,  yellow,  white  and  blue,  respectively 
sprinkled  with  gilt  stars  and  bordered  with  gold  ;  between  the 
two  dining-rooms,  company  and  private,  the  china  (not  your 
own,  ladies),  is  stored,  and  the  provender  (enough  in  all  con- 


THE    EAST    ROOM    IN    THE    WHITE    HOUSE,    WASHINGTON. 


THE   FAMOUS   EAST   ROOM, 


141 


science  to  pay  for)  is  kept  on  ice,  subject  only  to  the  trifling 
pilferings  of  the  aristocratic  steward,  who  commonly  keeps  two 
or  three  small  groceries  in  the  suburbs  running.  These  rooms 
are  plentiful  with  panelings,  mirrors,  chandeliers,  and  a  paint- 
ing or  two  of  not  much  consequence  comes  in.  There  was  no 
gas  in  these  rooms  till  the  time  of  Polk,  and  everybody  was 
greasy  with  candles.  It  looked  like  a  perpetual  secular  mass, 
got  up  for  the  masses.  The  enormous  East  room  had  lemon- 
colored  paper  with  cloth  border ;  four  mantels  of  black  marble 
with  Italian  black  and  gold  fronts  ;  great  grates,  all  polished ; 
a  mirror  over  each  mantel,  eight  and  a  half  feet  high  by  five 
feet  wide,  ponderously  framed; 
five  hundred  yards  of  Brus- 
sels carpet,  colored  fawn,  blue 
and  yellow  with  deep  red  bor- 
ders ;  three  great  cut-glass 
chandeliers  and  numerous  gilt 
brackets ;  curtains  of  light 
blue  moreen  with  yellow  dra- 
peries, a  gilded  eagle  holding 
up  the  drapery  of  each;  a 
cornice  of  gilded  stars  all 
around  the  room ;  sofas  and 
chairs  of  blue  damask  satin ;  interior  east  room. 

under  every  chandelier  a  rich  round  table  of  black  and  gold 
slabs,  and  in  all  the  piers  a  table  corresponding,  with  splendid 
lamps  above  each ;  rare  French  China  vases,  etc. 

Here,  you  have  the  White  House  pretty  much  as  it  stands, 
barring  the  leaky  roof  that  nobody  can  mend ;  a  huge  hotel, 
full  of  the  ghosts  of  dead  men  and  the  echoes  of  political  gab- 
ble ;  ringing  of  nights  with  the  oaths  of  Jackson,  the  fiddle  of 
Jefferson,  the  cooing  of  John  Tyler,  the  dirges  over  the  corpses 
of  Harrison,  Taylor,  and  Lincoln.  If  you  come  to  live  in  it, 
you  know  nothing  of  who  else  is  visitor.  Marry  a  man  who 
keeps  a  hotel,  and  you  have  about  all  that  a  President's  lady 
possesses. 


142  WHITE   HOUSE  AND   ITS   OCCUPANTS. 

John  Quincy  Adams  was  arraigned  in  the  campaign  of  1828 
for  having  put  up  a  billiard  table  in  the  White  House.  This 
had  been  bought  by  his  son  and  secretary,  Cliarles  Francis 
Adams,  out  of  the  latter' s  private  allowance.  It  was  the  first 
billiard  table  ever  set  up  in  the  White  House.  During  his  ad- 
ministration, the  East  room,  in  which  his  mother  had  hung 
clothes  to  dry,  was  so  gorgeously  furnished,  that  the  Jackson 
people  abused  him  for  it  on  the  stump,  and  in  the  party  news- 
papers. He  was  the  most  perfect  host,  except  Millard  Fillmore, 
and  possibly  Frank  Pierce,  that  the  North  ever  gave  to  the 
White  House.  Modest,  bold,  widely  experienced,  he  was  the 
last  learned  man  that  has  lived  in  the  Executive  Mansion,  and 
more  learned  than  any  other  occupant  of  it.  He  was  too  genteel 
to  be  re-elected.  He  went  down  to  duty  as  cheerfully  as  to  an 
apotheosis,  and  graduated  out  of  the  White  House  into  Con- 
gress. 

"  The  White  House,"  says  James  Parton, ''  has  more  in  com- 
mon with  the  marquee  of  a  Commander-in-Chief  than  the  home 
of  a  civilized  family.  Take  it,  therefore,  as  it  looked  under 
Old  Hickory,  the  archetype  of  Mr.  Johnson.  To  keep  up  the 
Presidential  hospitality,  he  had  to  draw  upon  the  proceeds  of 
his  farm.  Before  leaving  Washington,  in  1837,  he  had  to  send 
for  six  thousand  dollars  of  the  proceeds  of  his  cotton  crop  in 
order  to  pay  the  debts  caused  by  the  deficit  of  the  last  yearV 
salary.  A  year  previous  to  that  time  he  had  to  offer  for  sale  a 
valuable  piece  of  land  in  Tennessee,  to  get  three  thousand  dol- 
lars, for  which  he  was  in  real  distress.  ''Here  in  Washington," 
he  says,  "  1  have  no  control  of  my  expenses,  and  can  calculate 
nothing  on  my  salary." 

Earl  was  the  painter  Carpenter  of  Andrew  Jackson,  and 
painted  his  portrait  in  the  White  House.  Earl  used  to  get 
orders  because  he  had  the  ear  of  Jackson.  Everybody  in  Chris- 
tendom poured  into  the  White  House  in  those  days.  Mrs. 
Eaton  was  the  Mrs.  Cobb  of  the  time,  and  Jackson's  most  per- 
sistent public  effort  was  to  make  people  visit  her.  He  used 
Martin  Yan  Buren  for  the  tolerably  little  business  of  forcing 


THE    GllEKX    KOOM    IN'    THE    AVHITE    HOUSE,    ■\VASIIIXGTON. 


\> 


RA 


UNIVERSITY 


ANDREW   JACKSON.  143 

this  lady  into  society,  and  finally  dismissed  all  his  cabinet  and 
sent  his  daughter  and  son  home  to  Tennessee,  because  they  re- 
fused to  embrace  this  lady.  At  the  levees  everybody  ate  cheese ; 
when  there  was  no  cheese  they  ate  apples,. cold  smoked  sausage, 
anything  provided  it  had  a  smell.  The  place  stank  with  oh^ 
pipe  and  smoke  ;  it  was  redolent  with  Bourbon  whiskey.  For 
the  first  time  the  Executive  Mansion  became  a  police-office,  a 
caucus-room,  a  guard-room,  a  mess-tent.  But  Jackson's  vices 
were  all  of  a  popular  sort.  He  called  all  his  supporters  by 
their  first  names.  General  Dale,  of  Mississippi,  met  Jackson 
strolling  in  the  grounds  in  front  of  the  President's  house. 
(What  President  walks  in  the  grounds  familiarly  any  more?) 
"  Sam,"  said  the  General,  "  come  up  and  take  some  whiskey." 
He  shivered  his  clay  pipes,  uttering  emphatic  sentences.  He 
invited  his  friends  to  roam  at  will  in  the  White  House.  He 
used  to  smoke  corn-cob  pipes,  which  he  whittled  and  bored 
with  his  own  hands.  He  had  a  collection  of  pipes  greater  than 
has  ever  been  seen  in  this  country  outside  of  a  tobacco-shop. 
There  was  wine  always  on  his  table.  He  cracked  hickory-nuts 
on  a  hand-iron  upon  his  knee.  The  cold-blooded  and  impene- 
trable Van  Buren  he  called  "  Matty,"  as  if  Mr.  Johnson  should 
address  Mr.  Seward  as  "  Little  Bill."  Ho  drove  all  sorts  of 
odd  coaches,  had  street  figlits,  behaved  like  the  incomprehen- 
sibly despotic  old  patriot  that  he  was ;  but  the  people  always 
stood  by  him,  because  the  people  were  about  as  bad  as  he  was. 
He  kept  the  city  in  dreadful  fear ;  all  his  friends  were  duelists 
and  office-grabbers,  desperate  with  thirst  and  low  origin.  Jack- 
son turned  2,000  people  out  of  office  in  the  first  year  of  his 
reign.  Prior  to  that  time  only  seventy-three  removals  had 
been  made  in  nearly  half  a  century.  Said  one  of  Jackson's 
most  intimate  friends : 

"Our  republic,  henceforth,  will  be  governed  by  factions,  and 
the  struggle  will  be,  who  shall  get  the  offices  and  their  emolu- 
ments— a  struggle  embittered  by  the  most  base  and  sordid  pas- 
sions of  the  human  heart." 

After  the  First  Andrew  had  retired  from  the  Presidency,  he 
wrote  to  a  Nashville  newspaper  in  1840,  of  Henry  Clay : 


144  WHITE   HOUSE   AND   ITS   OCCUPANTS. 

"  How  contemptible  does  this  demagogue  appear  when  he 
descends  from  his  high  place  in  the  Senate,  and  roams  over  the 
country  retailing  slanders  against  the  living  and  the  dead." 

Jackson  also  encouraged  Sam  Houston  to  waylay  and  brutally 
beat  Congressman  AVilliam  Stanberry,  of  Ohio,  for  words  spoken 
in  debate,  saying :  "After  a  few  more  examples  of  the  same 
kind,  members  of  Congress  will  learn  to  keep  civil  tongues  in 
their  heads."  He  also  pardoned  Houston  when  the  latter  had 
been  lined  by  a  District  of  Columbia  court  for  the  same  act. 

When  the  First  Andrew  left  the  AYhite  House  with  a  farewell 
address,  the  New  York  American  said :  "  Happily  it  is  the  last 
humbug  which  the  mischievous  popularity  of  this  illiterate,  vio- 
lent, vain  and  iron-willed  soldier  can  impose  upon  a  confiding 
and  credulous  people."  Jackson  returned  home  to  Tennessee 
with  just  ninety  dollars  in  money,  having  expended  all  his  sal- 
ary and  all  the  proceeds  of  his  cotton  crop.  He  was  then  an 
even  seventy  years  of  age,  racked  with  pains,  rheums,  and  pas- 
sions, a  poor  life  to  pilot  by. 

Jackson  kept  two  forks  beside  the  plate  of  every  guest,  one 
of  steel,  another  of  silver,  as  he  always  ate,  himself,  with  a 
steel  fork.  I  have  found  in  a  sketch-book  this  j^icture  of  the 
White  House  as  he  was  seen  in  it  at  his  best : 

"  A  large  parlor,  scantily  furnished,  lighted  from  above  by  a 
chandelier  ;  a  bright  fire  in  the  grate  ;  around  the  fire  four  or 
five  ladies  sewing,  say  Mrs.  Donelson,  Mrs.  Andrew  Jackson 
(adopted  son's  wife),  Mrs.  Edward  Livingstone,  &c.  Five  or 
six  children,  from  two  to  seven  years  of  age,  playing  about  the 
room,  regardless  of  documents  and  work-baskets.  At  a  dis- 
tant end  of  the  apartment,  General  Jackson,  seated  in  an  arm 
chair,  wearing  a  long,  loose  coat,  smoking  a  long  reed  pipe, 
with  a  red  Virginia  clay  bowl  (price  four  cents).  A  little  be- 
hind the  President,  Edward  Livingstone,  Secretary  of  State, 
reading  a  despatch  from  the  French  minister,  and  the  President 
waves  his  pipe  absently  at  the  children  to  make  them  play  less 
noisily." 

Martin  Yan  Burcn,  the  first  of  the  New  York  politicians, 


THE    KK1>    KOOM    IX    THE    WHITE    HOUSE,    WASHINGTON. 


VAN  BUREN  AND  HARRISON.  145 

and  the  political  heir  of  Aaron  Burr,  was  boosted  into  the 
White  House  by  Jackson,  to  whom  he  played  parasite  for  eight 
years,  and  who  rode  with  him  to  inauguration.  Van  Buren's 
wife  died  in  1818 ;  he  had  four  sons ;  kept  the  White  House 
clean  and  decent,  but  never  was  heartily  beloved.  The  East 
Koom  was  one  cause  of  his  political  death,  as  Ogle,  a  Pennsyl- 
vania Congressman,  described  it  as  a  warehouse  of  luxuries 
bought  with  the  people's  money.  Ogle  mentioned  every  orna- 
ment and  its  cost,  and  the  ladies  kept  all  the  items  going.  Had 
Van  Buren  been  a  married  man,  they  would  have  "  skinned  " 
his  lady  in  every  dreadful  drawing-room  in  the  Union.  Haj> 
pily  the  poor  woman  was  dead.  I  forgot  to  mention,  that 
General  Jackson's  wife  died  of  joy  over  his  election.  She  was 
a  very  religious  woman,  very  ignorant,  and  Jackson's  friends 
thought  it  well  that  she  was  never  tempted  with  the  White 
House. 

The  short  month  of  President  Harrison  in  the  White  House 
is  chiefly  memorable  by  his  death.  His  was  the  first  funeral 
ever  held  in  the  building.  He  was  sixty-eight  years  old,  a 
magnified  physical  portrait  of  William  H.  Seward,  with  some- 
thing of  the  bearing  of  Henry  Clay.  A  full  Major-General 
he  had  been,  and,  beloved  by  almost  every  one,  his  graces 
were  nearly  meek,  except  as  relieved  by  the  remembrance  of 
his  valor.  The  power  of  "  hard  cider,"  and  "  log  cabin," 
nick  names,  while  they  elected  him  to  the  Presidency,  also 
put  him  under  a  campaign  pressure,  which,  added  to  the 
crowd  of  office-seekers  who  ran  him  down  by  day  and  night, 
quite  terminated  his  life.  He  took  cold  seeking  the  outer 
air  for  privacy's  sake,  and  diarrhoea  carried  him  away.  His 
last  words  were:  "I  wish  the  true  principles  of  the  gov- 
ernment carried  out.     I  ask  for  nothing  more !" 

John  Tyler  was  the  first  President  who  brought  a  bride 
into  the  White  House,  as  he  was  the  first  who  buried  a 
wife  from  its  portal.  The  dead  wife  he  had  married  in 
1813,  the  new  one  in  1844.  He  took  the  oath  of  office, 
owing  to  Harrison's  dying  during  the  recess  of  Congress,  to 
1 


146  WHITE   HOUSE   AND   ITS   OCCUPANTS. 

a  District  of  Columbia  Judge.  The  White  House  was  there- 
fore in  a  tolerably  dull  condition  all  this  time,  and  it  im- 
proved very  little  under  General  Taylor.  Two  dead  Presi- 
dents, one  dead  wife,  and  a  i^idower's  wedding  are  dismal 
stock  enough  for  one  house  in  \five  years.  Tyler  approaches 
Johnson  in  some  disagreeable  respects.  He  went  back  on  his: 
party,  and  never  recovered  goodl  esteem  even  among  traitors  to 
the  country.  1 

President  Polk  suggests  sometling  of  Johnson  in  the  place  of 
birth,  North  Carolina,  and  in  hisiplace  of  adoption,  Tennessee. 
He  was  just  fifty  years  old  when  he  took  possession  of  the 
White  House.  Mrs.  Polk  Avas  a  daughter  of  Joel  Childress,  a 
merchant  of  Tennessee,  and  a  Presbyterian,  while  the  Presi- 
dent inclined  toward  the  Methodists.  She  made  a  good  host- 
ess and  leaves  a  good  name  in  the  old  mansion. 

As  President  Harrison  was  killed  by  office-seekers.  President 
Taylor  was  killed  by  a  Fourth  of  July, — standing  out  in  the  hot 
sun,  after  fourteen  months'  tenure  of  oflice.  Taylor  made  more 
mistakes  of  etiquette  than  any  other  President,  not  excepting 
Mr.  Johnson,  but  he  had  a  heart.  His  war  horse  followed  his 
rider's  body  out  of  the  White  House  gate.  In  those  days  Jeff 
Davis,  son-in-law  of  the  President,  came  familiarly  to  the  White 
House.  Taylor  was  a  good  father  and  a  jagged  old  host.  But 
he  always  meant  well. 

Millard  Fillmore,  his  successor,  was  by  odds  the  handsomest 
man  that  ever  lived  in  the  building,  and  also  the  most  elegant. 
He  was  the  American  Louis  Philippe.  His  wife  died  a  few 
days  after  the  expiration  of  his  term,  and  also  his  daughter. 
Frank  Pierce  was  a  winning  man,  but  without  any  large  mag- 
netic graces.  He  rode  horseback  every  day,  unattended,  miles 
into  the  country  ;  his  wife  was  a  perpetual  invalid. 

We  have  now  come  clos©  to  the  great  clash  of  the  rebellion. 
James  Buchanan,  the  ancient  news-carrier  between  Clay  and 
Jackson,  mounting  upon  the  spiral  stairs  of  office-holding, 
brought  for  his  house-keeper,  Hattie  Lane,  a  red-haired,  rosy- 
cheeked,  buxom  Lancaster  county  lass,  not  unused  to  fair 


VIEW   IN    THE    CONSERVATORY,    AT    THE    WHITE    HOUSE, 
WASHINGTON. 


LINCOLN   AND   JOHNSON.  147 

society,  and  the  only  drawback  to  her  perfect  happmess  in  the 
White  House  was  the  old  uncle  himself.  He  bullied  small  pol- 
iticians who  had  served  him  at  his  own  table  before  his  niece, 
but  in  the  sense  of  outward  courtliness,  when  it  suited  him, 
there  were  few  such  masters  of  deportment  as  old  Buck  him- 
self. He  fell,  like  all  Northern  dough-faces,  into  the  hands  of 
rebel  thieves  like  Floyd,  and  did  their  bidding  till  the  powder 
was  hot  for  the  match. 

Then  came  Abraham  Lincoln  with  his  ambitious  wife. 

Afterward  with  Mr.  Johnson  came  his  invalid  lady,  and  his 
daughters,  Mrs.  Patterson  and  the  widow  Stover. 


CHAPTEE    XII. 


SOME     OF     THE     BUREAUX     OP   OUR   GOVERNMENT   VISITED — ^LIGHT 
SHED    UPON    THEIR   MANAGEMENT   AND    CONTENTS. 

Some  parts  of  the  Federal  Government  are  never  noticed 
here,  because  they  have  not  associated  with  politics,  and,  there- 
fore, never  become  the  subject  of  party  news. 

Few  persons  ever  hear  of  the  National  Observatory,  the  only 
public  building  here  which  stands  near  our  meridian  of  longi- 
tude, and  where  the  computations  are  made  by  which  American 
sailors  grope  their  way  over  the  main.  Few  know  anything  of 
the  Columbia  Institution  for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb,  one  of  those 
extraordinary  enterprises  of  the  Gallaudet  family,  where  deaf 
mutes  are  educated  for  professions,  and  to  be  teachers  of  other 
institutions.  The  Coast  Survey  is  also  a  lost  institution  to  the 
great  mass  of  Americans,  although  it  is  better  known  abroad 
than  any  bureau  of  our  Government. 

It  is  the  nearest  of  all  the  public  ateliers  to  the  Capitol 
edifice — only  one  block.  A  small  tin  sign  set  up  against  the 
jamb  of  the  open  door  of  a  very  old  brick  residence,  has  beci. 
its  only  advertisement  for  forty  years.  This  old  residence  is 
one  of  half  a  dozen  stretched  along  old  New  Jersey  Avenue 
and  on  the  scarp  of  Capitol  Hill,  which  are  tenanted  by  the 
office  employees  of  a  service  embi*acing  the  largest  area  of  labor 
in  the  government.  Some  of  the  buildings  are  across  the 
way  ;  some  are  in  a  newer,  smaller  row  on  the  same  Avenue ; 
one  building  is  a  fire-proof  safe,  big  enough  for  a  family  to  live 


GOVERNMENT   BUREAUX.  149 

in ;  the  main  office  is  in  Law's  old  block,  a  highly  respectable, 
thread  bare,  Bleak  House  sort  of  pile,  which  is  cracking  and 
groaning  through  its  hollow  concavities  more  and  more  every 
year. 

If  you  have  any  business  with  the  Coast  Survey — and  it  is  not 
to  folks  in  general  a  "  show"  department — you  might  venture 
to  peep  into  its  office  door  some  morning,  and  there  you  would  see 
a  bare  vestibule,  a  couple  of  inhospitable  naked  rooms  for  clerks, 
and  for  the  rest  a  couple  of  worn  and  creaking  stairs,  leading 
to  former  bed-chambers.  Back  passages,  also  uncarpeted,  con- 
duct to  some  old  and  would-be  stately  saloons,  where  a  few  steel 
engraved  plates  of  the  coast  surveyings  hang,  as  well  as  photo- 
graphic pictures  of  the  founders  and  Superintendents  of  this 
beneficent  undertaking. 

As  'w^e  wander  around  these  grim  and  rheumatic  old  apart- 
ments, over  the  half-faded  carpets,  amongst  the  quaint  patterns 
of  furniture  and  plush  in  former  woods,  and  modes  of  weaving, 
and  feel  the  mouldering,  dry  smell  of  the  rented  rooms  where 
science  is  driven  by  democracy,  we  may  well  experience  a  sensi- 
tiveness as  to  what  a  little  chance  the  useful,  the  dihgent,  and 
the  conscientious  attain  amongst  us,  and  how  busy  are  the 
criticisms  of  ignorance,  calling  itself  ''practicability,"  upon 
matters  beyond  its  ken.  The  meanest  committee  of  Congress 
has  a  fire-proof  parlor,  walnut  and  leather  furniture,  a  sumptuous 
clerk  and  a  lackey. 

But  here  is  the  Coast  Survey,  suggested  by  Jeffiarson,  begun 
by  Gallatin,  organized  by  Hassler,  perfected  by  Bach^,  and 
recognized  by  every  learned  body  in  this  world, — this  institution 
may  be  said' to  exist  by  the  oversight  of  politicians  ;  it  scarcely 
knows  where  to  lay  its  head ;  it  lives  like  the  poor  scholar,  up 
back-attics,  and  in  neglected  dormitories ;  it  steadily  refuses  to 
be  regulated  by  politicians,  and  it  only  gets  its  regular  appro- 
priation because  of  the  ignorance  of  the  caucus  Congressmen, 
who  are  afraid  to  be  voted  asses  if  they  denounce  it. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  personages  of  the  Coast  Survey 
is  Mathiot,  the  electrotyper,  who  has  been  at  his  business  for 
the  Government  about  a  third  of  a  century. 


150  GOVERNMENT  BUREAUX. 

He  is  a  Marylandcr,  a  quiet,  spectacled,  grave  man,  below 
tlie  medium  size,  and  he  discovered  the  art  of  separating  the 
engraved  plates  of  coast  survey  charts  from  the  metallic  unpres- 
sions  taken  of  them — these  impressions  being  used  to  print 
from,  while  the  original  plate  is  deposited   in  the  fire-proof 
magazine.     This  discovery  has  saved  ours  and  other  govern- 
ments tens  of  thousands  of  dollars,  but  it  is  needless  to  say  that 
Mathiot  never  got  any  recompense,  and  perhaps  little  recogni- 
tion for  it.     He  is  one  of  those  ancient,  slow,  dutiful  men,  such 
as  grow  up  and  ripen,  and  are  happy  under  benignant  govern- 
ments.    Some  years  ago  he  went  down  the  river  on  the  memo- 
rable excursion  which  killed  a  part  of  Tyler's  Cabinet,  and 
wlien  the  gun  called  the  "  Peacemaker"  burst,  Mathiot  licard 
the  gunmakers  discuss  the  causes.     They  agreed  that  all  the 
vibrations  of  the  metal  were  caught  in  the  acute  angle  where  . 
the  breech  was   pealed   down  to  the  barrel — tons  of  pressure 
concentrated  upon  a  spot.     Mathiot  got  to  thinking  this  over, 
as  it  applied  to  the  substance  he  should  interpose  between  his 
plates.     He  had  tried  wax,  and  many  other  mediums,  but  the 
problem  seemed  to  be  something  which  should  receive  and 
deaden  the  whole  force  of  electrotyping, — not  make  the  plates 
cohere,  nor  yet  deface  the  original  plate.     After  much  groping 
he  hit  upon  alcohol  and  iodine.     This,  transferred  by  galvanism, 
makes  a  thin  coating  between  the  plate  and  the  metal  copy,  of 
the  scarcely  conceivable  thinness  of  1,400  of  the  billionth  part 
of  an  inch.     Then,  by  filing  off  the  edges  of  the  two  plates,  the 
copy  comes  off  absolutely  perfect.     Prior  to  that  discovery  the 
costly  plates  were  crushed  and  defaced  in  the  press,  and  were 
good  for  nothing  after  a  few  hundred  impressions.     But  by  the 
Mathiot  process  a  dozen  printing  plates  could  be  produced  from 
one  engraving. 

It  is  the  pleasantest  siglit  in  this  bureau,  to  see  the  plates 
separated,  and  the  tin  burnished  silver  faces  of  the  large  and 
delicate  charts  come  perfect  from  tlieir  delicate  embrace,  every 
line,  figure,  fluting  and  hair  clearly  defined,  and, the  microscope 
fihowing  no  difference  whatever.     They  have  not  touched,  yet 


GOVERNMENT   BUREAUX.  151 

they  have  imparted  and  received  the  whole  story.  It  makes 
the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  credible. 

To  reduce  the  original  drawings  of  charts  to  plate  and  stan- 
dard size,  the  camera  is  used.  The  sheets  are  printed  on  a 
liand  press,  the  ink  being  roiled  over  frequently.  There  is  no 
line  engraving  in  the  world  superior  to  these  charts. 

By  the  establishment  of  the  Coast  Survey  the  sea  is  made  as 
sure  and  as  familiar  as  the  land.  Almost  every  port  in  the 
Union  has  derived  benefit  from  this  organization. 

A  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  was  telling  me,  a  few  days 
ago,  about  some  inordinate  fees  which  counsel  liad  received, 
within  his  knowledge.  For  example  :  David  Dudley  Field  re- 
ceived ^300,000  from  the  Erie  Railroad.  William  M.  Stewart 
was  paid  825,000  cash  by  the  Gould-Curry  silver  mine,  and  so 
many  feet  of  the  ore,  which  altogether  netted  him  $200,000. 
Jeremiah  S.  Black  received  $80,000  from  the  New  Alexander 
mine,  and  a  lew  months  ago  he  sued  them  for  $75,000  in  addi- 
tion, and  received  judgment.  Wm.  M.  Evarts  has  been  paid 
$25,000  for  defending  Andrew  Johnson,  and  his  annual  income 
is  $125,000.  He  recently  charged  $5,000  for  one  speech, 
which  occupied  eighty  minutes.  The  Justice  who  gave  this 
information  decried  the  high  charges  which  lawyers  everywhere 
receive  in  one  day,  making  no  apology  for  extorting  $100, 
where,  ten  years  ago,  $5  and  $10  were  deemed  good  fees. 

A  few  days  ago  I  had  the  pleasure  of  passing  through  the 
document  and  folding-rooms  of  the  Capitol,  which  are  under 
the  custody  of  the  Doorkeeper  of  the  House.  If  you  under- 
stand by  the  Doorkeeper  of  Congress,  a  person  who  stands  on 
guard  at  the  entrance  thereof,  you  greatly  err  ;  for  the  door- 
keeper has  more  than  one  hundred  employees,  and  is  literally  a 
person  in  authority,  saying  to  one  person  go  and  he  goeth,  and 
to  another  come  and  he  conieth.  The  chief  subject  of  superin- 
tendence with  the  doorkeeper  is  that  of  the  printed  bills,  acts, 
memorials,  petitions,  reports,  etc.,  of  Congress,  which  are  filed, 
preserved,  and  distributed  in  a  series  of  rooms  called  the  docu- 
ment room,  and  he  also  has  all  the  printed  matter  of  Congress 


152  GOVERNMENT  BUREAUX. 

wrapped  up  and  mailed,  after  it  has  been  franked.  The  Chief 
Doorkeeper's  salary  is  $2,650,  and  his  Chief  of  Folding  Room 
and  Chief  of  Document  Room  receive  each  |2,500.  The  fold- 
ing-rooms lie  in  the  cellars  and  clefts  of  the  old  Capitol  build- 
ing, and  comprise  twenty-six  rooms,  some  of  which  are  below 
the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  are  packed  with  layers  of  books 
twelve  deep,  the  fall  of  a  pile  of  which  would  crush  a  man 
to  death.  About  260,000  copies  of  the  Agricultural  Report 
alone  are  printed  every  year,  and  these  will  probably  weigh  two 
pounds  a-piece,  or  260  tons.  Each  member  of  Congress  has 
about  1,000  copies  of  this  book,  for  distribution,  and  all  these 
copies  are  put  up  and  warehoused  in  the  folding-room,  subject 
to  the  member's  frank,  and  when  they  are  to  be  mailed  they 
are  packed  in  strong  canvas  bags,  of  the  capacity  of  two  bush- 
els of  grain  measure.  Sometimes  200  of  these  heavy  bags  are 
sent  of  a  single  night  to  the  Post-office,  to  take  their  turn  on 
the  much-abused  mail  train.  The  boys  who  put  up  speeches 
and  books  for  the  mail  are  paid  by  the  quantity  of  work  done, 
and  good  hands  can  make  nearly  $50  a  month.  It  is  a  busy 
scene  in  the  depths  of  the  old  Capitol  building,  to  see  wagons 
come  filled  with  documents,  long  rows  of  boys  sealing  envel- 
opes, and  others  working  with  twine,  and  the  custodians  and 
directors  of  the  work  are  generally  free  to  admit  that  there  is 
much  unnecessary  printing  done,  and  that  many  of  the  books 
printed  are  stored  away  and  forgotten,  in  the  vaults  of  the 
mighty  labyrinth. 

The  document-room  occupies  what  was  once  the  Post  Office 
for  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  a  part  of  the  lobby  and 
galleries  of  that  celebrated  old  hall,  now  many  years  deserted 
for  the  new  wing,  where  subsequent  to  the  year  1818,  the  pop- 
ular body  of  the  Legislature  assembled  under  the  Speakership 
of  Henry  Clay,  James  K.  Polk,  John  Bell,  Philip  Barbour, 
Andrew  Stevenson,  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Howell  Cobb,  and 
Linn  Boyd.  Here  upwards  of  two  millions  of  copies  of  bills 
and  docmiients  are  annually  received,  distributed,  and  filed,  for 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  vast  business  of  Congress  is  done  by 


GOVERNMENT   BUREAUX.  153 

aid  of  printing, — the  bills,  acts,  etc.,  being  on  the  desk  for 
every  member  at  the  moment  of  debating  them.  The  usual 
number  of  copies  of  a  bill  printed  is  760,  and,  if  five  amend- 
ments should  be  proposed,  this  would  make  3,750  copies.  If, 
therefore,  each  Congress  should  pass  or  consider  1,000  bills, 
each  having  five  amendments,  there  would  be  15,000,000 
copies  issued.  About  20,000  copies  of  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  are  printed  every  year  at  a  cost  of  several  thousand  dol- 
lars, and  the  sum  of  $689,000  was  expended  last  year  in  all 
sorts  of  Congressional  literature.  The  documents  of  Congress 
go  back  to  the  first  Congress,  and  a  manuscript  index  to  them 
is  kept,  but  the  repository  for  them  is  neither  fire-proof  nor  of 
sufficient  capacity,  so  that  they  are  in  danger  of  combustion  or 
hopeless  confusion.  The  Capitol  edifice  is  already  too  small 
for  the  multifarious  offices  and  uses  required  of  it,  and  we  shall 
soon  be  compelled  to  meet  the  question  of  a  general  enlarge- 
ment of  the  whole  affair  or  a  relinquishment  of  much  of  the 
work  which  has  been  imposed  upon  the  legislative  body. 

We  shall  have  to  expect  differences  of  opinion  on  such  ques- 
tions as  concern  the  gravity  and  self-knowledge  of  the  whole 
Federal  Republic. 

Take  this  case  :  The  Commissioner  of  the  Land  Office, 
Joseph  Wilson,  is  a  man  of  wide  reading  and  wonderful  indus- 
try, and  every  year  he  prepares  a  very  voluminous  report  upon 
the  condition  of  the  public  domain,  not  only  returning  the 
statement  of  the  new  surveys,  the  quantity  of  land  sold,  and 
Buch  technical  tables  as  belong  to  his  duty,  but  he  also  com- 
poses and  throws  together  in  an  admirable  way,  the  latest 
problems  of  empire  and  extension,  the  history  of  gold,  and 
many  miscellaneous  statements  of  the  highest  interest.  In 
addition  to  this  he  has  handsomely  measured  and  executed  in 
his  office,  by  accomplished  German  map-makers,  such  charts  as 
will  illustrate  his  report.  One  of  these  maps  in  particular,  in- 
tended to  show,  upon  Mercator's  projection,  the  past,  the  pre- 
sent, and  the  prospective  routes  to,  and  possessions  of,  the 
Pacific,  is  entirely  unique  and  admirable,  and  it  is,  perhaps, 
twelve  feet  square. 


t 

154  GOVERNMENT  BUREAUX. 

The  question  at  once  arises  in  the  mind  of  every  Congress- 
man, ''  Shall  we  accept  and  print  that  report  and  have  the  ex- 
pensive maps  appended  to  it  engraved  ?" 

Here  are  two  arguments  at  once  ;  and  where  would  jou,  if 
a  Congressman,  stand  upon  the  question  ? 

1.  Pro.  ;  It  was  good  of  the  Commissioner  to  do  so  much 
good  work,  and  he  ought  to  be  encouraged  in  it.  He  is  justly  , 
proud  of  his  valuable  map,  and  it  will  do  much  good  to  scatter 
it  broadcast  with  the  report.  The  nation  rejoices  to  see  itself 
in  the  light  of  its  rivals,  and  to  see  the  century  in  the  light  of 
the  past.  Few  officials  care  to  do  overwork,  and  Wilson's  re- 
ports are  as  readable  as  they  are  important. 

2.  Contra  :  The  Commissioner's  reports  are  too  long,  and 
undertake  too  much  schoolmastership.  His  big  map  will  cost 
1200,000  to  engrave  it.  The  Republic  is  not  a  high  school,  and 
a  Land  Commissioner  is  not  a  Professor  of  History.  If  we 
print  this  report  ^it  will  be  putting  a  premium  on  extra  and  un- 
necessary printing,  and  if  we  circulate  the  map  the  private 
map-makers  will  find  their  trade  gone. 

Where  do  you  stand  on  this  question  ? 

Yet,  this  is  one  of  the  innumerable  topics  coming  up  to  re- 
quire to  be  voted  upon,  and  this  one  was  discussed  last  session 
in  all  varieties  of  ways.  Charles  Sumner  thought  the  Federal 
State  ought  to  waste  no  expense  to  understand  and  properly 
represent  itself,  both  before  its  own  citizens  and  the  world. 
Mr.  Anthony  thought  economy  and  a  due  restriction  of  Federal 
endeavors  inclined  us  to  reject  the  map. 

I  think  that  I  should  have  voted  with  Anthony  and  against 
Sumner,  and  on  this  ground ;  Under  our  institutions  the 
Government  has  no  business  to  try  to  do  too  much  for  us.  If 
it  content  itself  with  giving  us  a  fair  chance,  the  people  of 
themselves  will  write  treatises  and  engrave  maps,  particularly 
upon  special  topics.  An  international  copyright  law,  which 
will  cost  the  Government  nothing,  will  at  once  raise  authorship 
to  a  profession  here,  and  out  of  authorship  will  come  maps,  facts, 
excursions,  discoveries,  and  books,  all  the  more  valuable  that 


GOVERNMENT   BUREAUX.  155 

tlie  people  were  rational  enough  to  do  them  without  law.  Too 
much  help  at  the  centre  makes  helplessness  in  the  extremities. 
Mr.  Wilson's  maps  ought  to  be  deposited  in  the  Library  of  Con- 
gress, and  anj  mai>maker  should  be  allowed  to  take  copies  of 
them  at  his  own  expense.  Help  the  Library,  Mr.  Sumner  ! 
and  give  us  a  copyright  law,  and  national  instruction  from 
American  sources  will  ensue. 

"Are  you  a  revenue  detective  ?  "  said  I  to  a  man  of  my  ac- 
quaintance. 

"  No,  not  exactly.  I  had  been  studying  up  whiskey  frauds, 
and  I  told  Mr.  Boutwell,  who  is  an  old  friend  of  mine,  that  I 
believed  that  1  could  recover  some  millions  of  money  lost  dur- 
ing the  years  1866,  1867,  1868." 

"  You  see,"  continued  Mr.  Martin,  "  that  during  those  years 
of  Johnson's  administration  the  revenue  derived  from  whiskey 
was  only  about  $15,000,000  a  year,  although  five  times  as 
much  whiskey  was  distilled  then  as  now,  and  although  the  tax, 
which  is  now  60  cents  a  gallon,  was  then  $2  a  gallon.  Now, 
the  revenue  from  whiskey  obtained  during  the  first  year  of 
Grant's  administration  has  been  $72,000,000,  and  I  believe 
that  $200,000,000  can  be  recovered  from  the  distilleries  and 
the  defaulting  revenue  officials  at  civil  suit.  My  investigations 
have  been  confined  to  New  York,  where  I  am  confident  that  I 
can  recover  $50,000,000." 

"  What  was  the  nature  of  those  frauds  ?  " 

"  It  is  my  belief  that  in  nine-tenths  of  the  cases  the  govern* 
ment  officials  were  the  corrupters  of  the  distillers.  Those  cor- 
rupt officials  escaped  summary  expulsion  by  the  operations  of 
the  Tenure-of-Office  law,  for,  even  when  Johnson  was  willing  to 
turn  out  a  perjured  collector  or  assessor,  that  willingness  was 
interpreted  by  the  Senate  to  be  a  political  prejudice,  and  tlie 
rascal  always  kept  his  place  by  proving  that  he  was  an  anti- 
Johnson  man.  The  distillers  have  almost  invariably  admitted 
to  me  that  they  would  have  made  more  money,  with  less  wear 
and  tear  of  conscience,  had  they  paid  the  whole  tax  and  traded 
on  the  square  " 


156  HOW  BEVENUE   FRAUDS   ARE   COMMITTED. 

"  Explain  how  the  frauds  were  committed  generally." 
"  Well,  the  act  of  fraud  was  generally  perpetrated  in  this 
manner :  The  law  compels  every  distillery  to  have  two  receiv- 
ing tubs,  into  which  the  high  wines  or  whiskey  is  run,  and  no 
liquor  is  to  be  run  into  those  tubs  after  dark.  The  revenue 
officer  is  supposed  to  come  to  the  distillery  and  watch  the  whis- 
key drawn  from  the  tubs  into  barrels,  at  which  time  he  takes 
note  of  the  number  of  gallons,  and  collects  the  tax.  I  have 
found  distilleries  of  the  largest  capacity  to  return  fifteen  or 
twenty  barrels  a  day,  whereas  a  thousand,  fifteen  hundred,  or 
two  thousand  barrels  was  probably  the  actual  quantity  manufac- 
tured. The  fraud  was,  of  course,  perpetrated  by  collusion  with 
the  revenue  officers,  and  in  this  way :  An  underground  pipe 
extended  from  the  bottom  of  the  receiving  tubs  to  a  neigiibor- 
ing  building  rented  by  the  distiller  and  called  a  rectifying  room. 
If  the  underground  pipe  was  suspected  or  found  to  be  awkward, 
some  boards  were  loosened  in  the  roof  above,  and  a  hose  or 
pipe  dropped  into  the  whiskey,  which  was  then  pumped  by  a 
hand  pump  or  a  steam  engine  into  the  rectifying  room,  where 
it  was  secretly  barreled.  Now,  we  come  to  that  part  of  the 
fraud  by  which  it  was  made  next  to  impossible  to  trace  the 
illegal  whiskey  into  the  hands  of  the  buyer.  The  distiller 
would  go  to  a  whiskey  dealer  or  speculator  and  conclude  a  mock 
purchase  from  him  of,  say,  two  thousand  barrels  of  whiskey. 
When  the  illegal  whiskey  from  the  rectifying  room  was  sold 
and  shipped,  therefore,  the  distiller's  books  sliowed  that  he  has 
purchased  two  thousand  barrels  of  crude  whiskey  of  a  certain 
party,  and  rectified  it  merely  ;  while  a  detective,  tracing  up 
this  whiskey,  would  find  the  books  of  the  pseudo  seller  to  cor- 
respond with  those  of  the  distiller ;  everything,  therefore 
seemed  to  be  fair  and  square,  and  the  detectives  were  baffled. 
But,  I  am  able  to  show,  even  where  I  cannot  prove  such  a  sale 
to  have  been  a  false  one,  that  the  government  has  a  right  to 
damages  because,  in  almost  every  case  this  mock  sale  is  marked 
down  at  a  price  below  the  tax,  and  this  of  itself  the  law  sup- 
poses to  he primd  facie  evidence  of  evasion." 


GOVERNMENT  BUREAUX.  157 

"  But,  Mr.  Martin,  were  there  not  door-keepers  placed  upon 
all  the  distilleries  ?  "  . 

"  Certainly  ;  but  they,  like  the  gangers,  and  all  the  rest  up 
to  collectors,  were  put  upon  salary,  and  found  it  convenient  to 
slip  away  whenever  necessary.  I  am  prepared  to  show  that  as 
much  as  $15,000  a  week  was  paid  for  months  and  months  by 
some  single  distilleries,  and  from  that  down  to  $100  and  $500 
a  week,  as  blackmail.  In  many  cases  the  first  instalments  of 
these  enormous  subsidies  were  paid  as  flat  blackmail.  Let  me 
give  you  an  example  :  A  distiller,  in  one  case  which  I  investi- 
gated, was  a  matter-of-fact  German,  who  was  mentally  incapa- 
ble of  keeping  himself  informed  upon  the  intricate  system  of 
laws  affecting  the  distilleries,  which  were  constantly  being 
amended,  repaired,  or  repealed  by  Congress.  The  character 
of  legislation  upon  this  subject  is  of  itself  a  snare  and  a  pitfall 
to  the  simple  man.  Well,  my  old  German  distiller,  knowing 
little  of  some  new  turn  in  the  law,  was  waited  upon  one  day  by 
a  revenue  officer,  who  told  him  that  he  was  operating  illegally, 
and  that  his  place  must  be  forthwith  closed  up. 

"  '  Why,'  says  my  simple-minded  man,  ^  I  had  no  intention 
of  violating  the  regulations.  If  you  close  me  up  now  you  will 
ruin  me.  Here  I  have  stored  away  an  immense  quantity  of 
grain  and  other  material.  Is  there  no  way  of  avoiding  this 
seizure  ? ' 

"  '  I  don't  know,'  says  the  revenue  man,  dubiously, '  I  have 
only  one  set  of  orders.  But  you  may  keep  on  until  to-morrow, 
when  I  will  see  the  Collector.     I  won't  close  you  up  to-day.' 

"  The  next  day  back  comes  the  revenue  man,  with  a  serious 
face,  and  says : 

" '  We  have  talked  this  matter  over  at  the  office,  and  we 
don't  want  to  shut  you  up.  We  think  that  you  are  a  good  man, 
and  that  you  mean  to  do  right.  I  am  instructed  to  say  that 
$5,000  will  fix  this  matter  for  the  present.' 

"  The  distiller  sees  no  way  of  escape.  Time  is  precious  to 
him.  So  he  gives  his  check  for  five  thousand  dollars  drawn  to 
'  cash.'     Thus  begins  a  series  of  blackmailings,  and  there  is  no 


158  WHISKEY   FRAUDS. 

going  back,  because  the  distiller's  offence  is  a  State's  Prison 
one.  At  last  weary  of  these  repeated  exactions,  he  agrees 
with  the  revenue  officer  to  pay  a  fixed  salary  every  week. 

"  Take  another  case :  A  man  has  put  up  a  distillery ;  he 
finds  the  tax  on  whiskey  is  two  dollars  a  gallon,  and  yet  that 
he  can  buy  it  in  the  market  for  a  dollar  and  a  quarter,  so  he 
goes  to  the  Collector. 

" '  I  have  spent  a  hundred  thousand  on  my  distillery,'  he 
says, '  and  I  propose  to  go  into  the  busines ;  but,  if  I  pay  the 
tax  and  sell  at  the  market  rates,  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  make 
anything.' 

"  Well,'  answers  the  Collector, '  you  must  do  as  others  do. 
I  will  send  a  man  to  you  to-morrow,  who  will  tell  you  how  to 
act.' 

"  The  next  day  a  man  goes  down  and  debauches  the  distiller 
with  a  statement  of  how  others  do.  Thus  a  mighty  net-work 
of  villainy  covers  the  whole  trade.  The  distillers  get  tp  look 
upon  the  government  officials  as  a  class  of  blackmailers,  and, 
as  I  have  said,  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  has  been 
lost  to  the  Treasury.  The  distillers  put  upon  their  guard,  effiict 
an  organization  for  mutual  defense,  and  send  their  attorneys  to 
Washington.  In  the  pursuit  of  these  discoveries,  I  have  been 
opposed  by  the  majority  of  the  revenue  officers  in  New  York 
most  bitterly.  But  I  believe  that  the  distillers,  as  a  class,  have 
been  seduced  into  dishonesty,  and,  instead  of  sending  them  to 
jail,  I  am  in  favor  of  beginning  a  series  of  civil  suits  to  recover 
the  money  lost  during  the  years  I  have  named. 

At  this  point  Mr.  Martin  gathered  himself  up  like  a  box-ter- 
rapin, and  refused  to  make  whiskey  frauds  any  more  mysterious. 

Washington  City  is  the  paradise  of  blank-book  and  bill-head 
makers.  There  are  about  half-a-dozen  firms  of  this  sort  on 
Pennsylvania  Avenue,  which  keep  up  an  ornamental  shop  front, 
sell  an  envelope  or  a  bottle  of  ink  twice  a  week,  and  for  the 
rest  exist,  or  rather  prosper,  upon  government  contracts.  The 
fattest  take  these  worthies  have  is  tlie  Interior  Department, 
whose  Secretary  makes  his  stationery  contracts  blind-folded. 


GOVERNMENT   BUREAUX.  159 

A  couple  of  ex-Commissioners  of  Patents  seem  to  have  seconded 
him  to  the  extent  of  ordering  about  ten  thousand  dollars  in  sta- 
tionery every  month,  and  when,  some  time  ago,  Hon.  Elisha 
Foote  took  charge  of  the  office,  and  fouiid  that  a  thousand  dol- 
lars a  month  would  be  an  extravagant  outlay  for  this  material, 
the  combined  cohorts  of  Browning,  the  stationers,  the  Patent 
agents,  and  the  corrupt  clerks  of  the  Patent  Office  in  collusion 
with  the  swindlers,  charged  home  upon  him. 

The  subject-matter  of  this  collusion  was  the  merry  contract 
of  Dempsey  and  O'Toole,  a  pair  of  gentlemen  whose  losses  in 
the  lost  cause  of  J.  Davis  &  Co.,  naturally  made  them  objects 
of  sympathy.  They  were  awarded  the  contract  for  stationery 
and  printing  for  the  entire  Interior  Department,  being  the  low- 
est bidders,  according  to  the  extraordinary  description  of  bid- 
ding in  vogue  in  Washington.  This  manner  of  bidding  is 
something  like  this ;  the  stationer  sees  that  among  a  large  num- 
ber of  articles  there  are  needed  gold  pens,  steel  pens,  expen- 
sive bound  books,  and  envelopes.  He  makes  a  mental  guess 
that  not  more  than  twenty-five  gold  pens  will  be  needed  by  the 
whole  department ;  therefore,  he  offers  to  furnish  these  at  seven 
cents  each,  the  price  of  the  same  being,  perhaps,  three  dollars  each. 
But  steel  pens,  he  guesses,  will  be  required  to  the  amount  of 
a  hundred  thousand ;  the  price  of  these  he  sets  at  five  times 
their  value.  So  with  the  few  expensive  ledgers.  These  he  bids 
for  at  half  their  value,  while  he  charges  300  per  cent,  profit  upon 
common  envelopes,  the  demand  for  which  is  enormous.  By 
taking  the  average  of  an  audacious  bid  like  this  it  will  be  found 
in  the  aggregate  lower  than  an  honest  contract ;  for  the  depart- 
ment is  unable  to  specify  precisely  the  amount  of  each  article 
it  may  wish  to  use,  and  the  stationer  expects  to  regulate  this 
use  by  collusion  with  parties  inside  the  office. 

When  Mr.  Elisha  Foote,  the  Commissioner  of  Patents,  came 
to  his  office,  he  found  that  under  this  fraudulent  contract  he 
was  burdened  with  useless  stationery  at  enormous  rates.  Bond 
paper,  worth  two  cents  a  sheet,  charged  eight  cents,  lay  in  the 
vaults  of  the  Patent  Office,  cnougli  to  last  twenty  years.    Nev- 


160  GOVERNMENT   CONTRACTING.  ' 

ertheless,  the  contractors  demanded  to  furnish  $24,000  worth 
more  at  the  same  extravagant  rate,  and  clahncd  that  a  verbal 
contract  to  that  effect  had  been  made  with  A.  M.  Stout,  ex 
Commissioner.  Mr.  Foote  then,  to  test  the  honesty  of  the  con- 
tract, ordered  three  hundred  gold  pens  at  the  low  rate  annexed 
in  the  schedule ;  at  this  the  stationers  raised  tlie  cry  that 
Commissioner  Foote  was  profligately  buying  gold  pens  for 
all  his  clerks.  Small  paper-covered  entry-books,  as  big  as  a 
boy's  "  copy-book,"  worth  twenty-five  cents,  were  charged  twen- 
ty-five dollars  !  Fifty  thousand  strips  of  paste-board,  three 
inches  square,  worth  a  mill  apiece,  were  charged  four  cents 
apiece.  A  bill  was  exhibited,  paid  by  one  of  Mr.  Foote 's  prede- 
cessors, for  twenty-eight  thousand  Patent  Office  heads  and  forms 
whereas  only  eleven  thousand  had  been  delivered.  Interro- 
gated upon  this,  the  stationers,  appearing  by  Richard  Merrick, 
their  counsel,  alleged  that  they  had  been  permitted  to  collect  in 
advance  and  use  the  government  funds  in  their  business.  Asked 
why  the  additional  heads  were  not  forthcoming,  they  accused 
Mr.  Foote  of  taking  away  the  printing  plate. 

In  brief,  Mr.  Foote  refused  to  pay  the  bill  of  124,000  without 
an  investigation.  This  was  ordered  to  take  place  before  three 
patent-officers,  B.  F.  James,  of  Illinois,  Norris  Peters,  of  Dela- 
ware, and  E.  W.  W.  Griffin  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  This 
report  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  pieces  of  white-washing 
in  the  history  of  Washington  audacity. 

"  The  terms  and  conditions  of  the  contract  proper,"  says  this 
commission,  "  exclude,  necessarily,  any  inquiry  into  its  char- 
acter or  of  the  prices  stipulated  to  be  paid,  unless  fraud  is 
shown." 

"  And  we  are  also  of  the  opinion  that  bills  presented  to 
the  Patent  Office,  accepted  and  paid,  are  also  an  estoppel  on  the 
part  of  the  office  as  to  the  character  of  goods  purchased  and 
the  prices  paid  therefor.  Such  purchases  may  be  considered  a 
matter  of  contract,"  etc.,  *  *  *  a  other  matters 
that  refer  to  tlie  interests  of  the  Office,  in  which  Dempsey  & 
O'Toole  have  not  by  any  testimony  been  implicated,  and  which 


GOVERNMENT   BUREAUX.     V  n^  161 

in  their  nature  should  not  be  made  public  by  the  commission, 
will  form  the  subject  of  a  separate  report." 

Meantime  Secretary  Browning,  with  unseemly  haste,  twice 
ordered  Commissioner  Foote  to  cash  this  bill.  The  Commis- 
sioner said  he  would  go  to  jail  first.  Arrangements  were  then 
made  to  take  him  in  front,  flank,  and  rear,  by  threat,  inuendo, 
and  storm,  and  while  the  stout  old  gentleman  was  wondering 
whether  it  was  wise  or  possible  to  be  honest  in  any  public  place. 
Congress  happily  came  to  his  relief,  despite  the  objections  of  the 
Democrats,  and  forbade  the  bill  to  be  paid  without  investiga- 
tion. 

This  case  is  convincing  that  the  whole  business  of  contract- 
ing for  stationery  at  Washington  is  unprincipled,  that  waste 
and  profligacy  of  stationery  is  universal,  and  that  the  Patent 
Office  is  full  of  people  in  collusion  with  outside  scoundrels. 

Here  comes  the  manuscript  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  and 
it  is  set  up  by  sworn  compositors,  who  dare  not  disclose  it. 
Here  most  generally  by  observance,  but  not  at  present  by 
breach,  comes  the  first  draft  of  the  President's  message,  and 
all  its  accompanying  papers.  The  long  reports  of  Committees 
of  Congress  upon  every  conceivable  question,  are  put  into 
type  here.  In  a  word,  no  where  else  is  any  printing  done  for 
the  general  Government  except  the  debates  of  Congress,  which 
are  given  out  by  contract,  and  the  bonds  and  notes  of  the 
United  States,  which  are  printed  in  the  Treasury  Department. 
In  this  building  even  the  money  orders  are  printed  and 
stamped,  which  go  through  the  post-office  like  so  many  drafts. 
So  are  the  lithographic  plates  prepared  here  to  illustrate  the 
large  reports  of  explorations. 

In  1860,  Cornelius  Wendell,  a  celebrated  typographical  and 
political  jobber,  sold  this  establishment  to  the  United  States 
for  $135,000,  and  it  is  now  the  very  largest  printing  office  in 
the  world. 

Among  the  public  printers  have  been  Gales  and  Seaton, 
Jonathan  Elliott,  Armstrong  of  Tennessee,  Duff  Green,  Blair 
and  Rives,  Cornelius  Wendell,  and  John  D.  Defrees,  who  has 
hold  the  position  since  1861. 


162  COST   OF   GOVERNMENT   PRINTING. 

If  there  is  anything  that  is  pretty,  it  is  to  see  a  pretty  girl 
on  an  Adams'  press,  feeding  tiie  monster  so  daintily. 

Here  is  a  double  row  of  them — Una  and  the  lion  reduced  to 
machinery — presses  and  girls,  the  press  looking  up  as  if  it 
would  like  to  "  chaw  "  the  girl  up,  if  it  could  only  get  loose 
from  the  floor,  and  the  girl  dropping  a  pair  of  black  eyes  into 
the  cold  heart  of  the  press,  all  warm  now  with  friction, 
ashamed  of  its  grimy  mouth,  burning  to  slip  its  belt  and 
trample  the  paper  to  ribbons,  and  turn  bondage  into  bliss. 
She,  meantime,  touches  it  with  her  little  foot,  thrills  it  with 
the  gliding  of  her  garment,  poises  over  it  on  one  white  little 
finger  the  plain  gold  ring  of  some  more  Christian  engagement, 
and  black  with  jealousy,  the  press  plunges  into  its  slavery 
again,  dishevelled  with  ink ;  dripping  varnish,  cold  and  keen 
of  teeth,  the  imp  goes  on,  and  the  beautiful  tyrant  only 
smiles. 

The  government  printing-office  involves  a  yearly  expense  of 
from  one  million  and  a-half  dollars  to  over  two  millions,  and 
this  does  not  include  the  printing  of  the  debates  of  Congress, 
which  is  done  by  contract  at  the  Globe  office,  and  which  costs 
seven  dollars  a  column  to  report  them,  and  six  dollars  (I 
believe)  a  copy  per  session  for  the  Globe,  in  which  they  are 
printed. 

The  five  successive  stages  of  this  building  are  busy  in  scenes 
and  suggestions  worthy  of  our  attention,  but  tlie  limits  of 
your  pages  and  your  patience  demand  more  substantial 
matter. 

Government  printers  get  a  trifle  better  prices  than  are  paid 
elsewhere  in  the  country.  Steady  work  will  give  one  $1500 
a  year  in  this  manufactory.  The  work  girls  get  from  nine  to 
twelve  dollars  a  week.  The  printers  are  almost  always  in 
excess,  however. 

The  great  Bullock  press  cost  $25,490.  In  one  year  new 
type  added  cost  $18,804  ;  printing  ink,  $19,717 ;  coal,  seven 
hundred  tons  ;  new  machinery,  $5,000. 

In  the  bindery,  four  thousand  Russian  leather  skins  were 


GOVERNMENT   BUREAUX.  163 

used,  seven  hundred  and  sixty  packs  of  gold  leaf  (costing 
nearly  $7,000),  nearly  five  thousand  dollars  worth  of  twine, 
and  as  much  of  glue. 

The  Executive  Departments,  with  the  Courts,  required  in 
1867  about  $757,000  worth  of  printing,  while  the  House  of 
Representatives  ran  up  a  bill  of  1454,000,  and  the  Senate 
$186,000.  In  addition  to  this.  Acts  of  Congress  warranted 
about  $233,000  additional  of  work  done  for  miscellaneous 
objects.  Mr.  Seward  was  a  dainty  hand  with  the  types,  and 
would  have  no  bindings  but  the  best.  His  bill  in  one  year 
was  about  $32,000.  The  Supreme  Courts  and  its  satellite 
courts  take  less  than  half  as  much,  or  nearly  $15,000.  The 
Congressional  printer  himself  has  a  little  bill  of  $700,  but  the 
Attorney-General  is  most  modest  of  all,  not  reaching  the 
figure  of  $600,  nor  does  the  new  Department  of  Education 
consume  more.  The  Agricultural  Department,  with  its  huge 
reports,  passes  $32,000.  The  monstrous  appetite  of  the 
Treasury  leads  everything,  with  nearly  $300,000,  and  the  War 
Department  follows  it  with  $148,000.  Next  come  the  Post 
Oflice,  Navy  and  Interior  Departments,  ranging  from  $78,000 
to  852,000. 

No  enlightened  Government  in  this  age  can  do  without 
public  documents,  but  the  whole  system  of  distributing  them 
should  be  changed.  There  are,  perhaps,  3,000  odd  counties 
in  the  United  States.  Let  Government  content  itself  with 
presenting  a  copy  of  every  public  work  to  these,  and  let  it  sell 
the  rest  to  the  people  at  cost  price. 

Of  the  agricultural  report  the  extraordinary  number  of 
220,000  copies  have  been  ordered  for  last  year  alone,  at  a  cost 
of  $180,000,  or  about  eighty-five  cents  a  copy.  This  cost  is 
enough  to  pay  the  President,  Vice-President,  all  the  Cabinet 
officers,  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  two-thirds  of  the  first- 
class  foreign  ministers.  In  these  reports  there  are  450,000 
pounds  of  paper,  or  225  tons,  enough  to  take  225  double-horse 
wagons  to  pull  tliem.  Now,  put  these  225  tons  into  the  mail 
bags,  franked  by  Congressmen  to  corner  grocers  and  gin-mill 


164  PATENT  OFFICE. 

proprietors,  and  you  get  some  notion  of  the  reason  why  the 
Post-Office  Department  was  not  self-sustaining. 

One  evil  suggests  and  supports  another.  The  swindles  of 
the  world  are  linked  together,  and  the  devil's  forlorn  expedients 
against  the  nation  are  "  omnibussed." 

At  this  very  moment  there  are  800,000  copies  of  the  reports 
for  various  years  lying  in  the  vaults  of  the  Patent  Office  build- 
ing, being  the  quantity  annually  printed  in  excess  of  the 
demands  even  of  extravagance.  These  copies  represent  180,000 
of  the  people's  money  invested  in  waste  paper,  mildewing, 
rotting,  the  spoil  of  paste-rats  and  truss  makers.  The  new 
Commissioner  of  Patents,  Mr.  Foote,  when  he  took  his  seat 
some  time  ago,  was  not  aware  of  this  decaying  mass  of  agri- 
cultural knowledge,  manuring  the  ground  instead  of  the  yeoman 
intellect.  The  Patent  Office  is  self-supporting,  but  that  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  print  more  books  than  it  wants.  The  bill 
for  engraving  plates  of  models  for  the  Patent  Office  last  year, 
was  $85,000.  This  is  not  mis-spent,  but  the  excess  of  books 
was  profligacy. 

The  usual  number  of  copies  printed  of  any  public  document 
is  1,550,  or  about  the  average  circulation  of  books  printed  by 
private  publishing  houses.  Out  of  this  number  more  than 
one-half  are  bound  up,  the  rest  being  distributed  in  sheets  by 
gift,  mail,  or  otherwise. 

It  is  the  current  belief  in  "Washington  that  the  Patent  Office 
department  of  the  Government  is  not  without  corruption,  but 
the  agents  and  lawyers  whose  offices  lie  in  its  environs,  and 
who  are  at  the  mercy  of  its  examiners,  are  chary  to  speak,  much 
of  their  bread  and  butter  being  bound  up  in  the  good- will  of  the 
directory.  A  partial  awarding  of  patents,  in  the  interest  of 
money  instead  of  merit,  involves  unjust  millions  of  dollars, 
besides  discouraging  inventors,  and  making  them  doubt  the 
righteousness  of  the  Government.  With  a  corrupt  Patent  Office, 
infinite  law-suits  arise,  and  yet  it  is  probable  that  money  is  freely 
used  within  the  precincts  of  that  building,  the  claims  of  inven- 
tors who  are  willing  to  pay  being  considered  in  many  gross  cases 


GOVERNMENT   BUREAUX.  165 

beyond  those  of  the  needy.  So  is  there  preference  among  the 
patent  agents—  those  who  soHcit  patents — some  being  under- 
stood to  have  the  ears  of  the  office  at  their  disposal,  others 
failing  to  secure  patents  which  are  afterwards  willingly  granted 
to  cotcmporaries.  One  of  the  oldest  patent  lawyers  in  the  city 
said  to  me  a  few  days  ago : 

"  The  Patent  Office  has  been  more  or  less  corrupt  for  fifteen 
years !  Yes,  twenty  !  When  I  used  to  be  an  anti-slavery  man, 
in  the  years  of  Pierce  and  Buchanan,  laj  clients  were  given  to 
understand  that  they  would  be  wise  to  apply  for  patents  by 
some  other  agent.  Recently,  I  have  known  the  changing  of 
the  agent  to  get  the  patent  promptly.  The  office  ought  to  be 
thoroughly  overhauled.  It  has  become  so  that  examiners 
expect  to  serve  a  brief  term  and  go  out  rich." 

Mrs.  Poote,  the  wife  of  the  Commissioner,  is  an  inventor, 
whose  patents  have  been  profitable.  She  has  invented  a  skate 
without  straps,  and  several  other  things. 

Thaddeus  Hyatt,  once  incarcerated  in  the  District  Jail  for  a 
complicity  which  he  affected  to  have  with  John  Brown's  raid, 
is  now  a  successful  inventor,  his  patents  for  glass-lights  in  pave- 
ments netting  him  a  very  large  income. 

About  fifty  thousand  patents  have  been  issued  in  the  United 
States  in  thirty  years,  the  receipts  for  which  in  fees  have  been 
nearly  two  millions  and  a  half  of  dollars,  wdiile  the  British 
Government  has  granted  only  about  forty  thousand  patents  in 
250  years.  This  shows  the  extraordinary  mental  activity  of 
the  American  mind  in  mechanics,  and  the  Patent  Office  build- 
ing, which  has  cost  the  government  no  money,  is  the  best  monu- 
ment to  American  shrewdness  and  suggestiveness  in  the  world. 
Amongst  nearly  a  hundred  thousand  models  stored  in  the  splen- 
did galleries  of  that  institution,  one  may  wander  in  hopeless 
bewilderment,  feeling  that  every  model,  however  small,  is  the 
work  of  some  patient  year,  lifetime,  and  often  of  many  life- 
times, so  that  the  entire  contribution,  if  achieved  by  one  mind, 
would  have  extended  far  into  a  human  conception  of  an  eternity 
of  labor. 


166  PATENT   LAWYERS. 

The  best  patent  lawyers  in  the  United  States  are  Judp-e  Cur- 
tis and  Mr.  Whiting  of  Boston,  Messrs.  Gafford  and  Keller  of 
New  York,  George  Harding  of  Philadelphia,  and  Mr.  Latrobe 
of  Baltimore. 

The  most  succesful  firm  of  patent  ai^ents  is  represented  by 
the  newspaper  called  the  Scientific  American,  which  began 
upwards  of  twenty-two  years  ago.  One  of  its  partners  is  one 
of  the  ancient  enemies  of  Bennett,  who  classified  them  as  "  Old 
Moses  Beach  and  those  other  sons  of  Beaches,"  proprietors 
of  the  New  York  Sun.  The  other  partners  are  Munn  and 
Wales.  Their  income  is  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year  to  each 
partner,  and  they  obtain  one-third  of  all  the  patents  issued, 
which  are  chiefly,  however,  what  are  classified  as  "  cheap  pat- 
ents," on  small  and  simple  inventions.  The  Scientific  Amer^ 
ican  was  started  by  an  inventor,  Rufus  Porter,  who  sold  out  to 
the  present  owners.  They  refused  to  insert  in  it  the  cards  of 
other  patent  agents,  and  it  being  the  only  paper  of  its  class, 
the  inventors  at  large  transact  their  business  through  its  pro- 
prietors. It  A^as  lately  edited  by  Mr.  McFarland,  and  under 
his  management  was  altogether  the  best  paper  for  inventors  in 
the  world.  The  Commissioners  of  Patents  include  some  good 
names,  chief  of  whom  was  Attorney  General  Holt,  others  being 
Ellsworth  and  Bishop  of  Connecticut,  Burke  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, Ewbank  of  New  York,  Hooper  of  Vermont,  Mason  of 
Iowa,  and  Theaker  of  Ohio. 

The  Patent  Office  building  is  generally  adjudged  to  be  the 
most  imposing  of  all  the  national  edifices  of  the  Capital.  To 
my  mind  the  Post  Office  is  a  better  adaptation.  The  former 
was  the  work  of  the  present  architect  of  the  Capital,  Edward 
Clark,  and  its  three  porticoes  cost  $75,000  apiece.  The  four 
grand  galleries,  or  model  rooms,  are  unlike  and  magnificent. 
It  is  related  here  that  inventors  who  spend  many  years  among 
these  modnls  commonly  go  crazy. 

These  divers  operations,  possessing  little  affinity,  are  all  to 
be  transacted  by  one  head.  The  Bureau  of  Pensions  dispenses 
nearly  nineteen  millions  of  dollars  a  year ;  the  Land  Office  gives 


GOVERNMENT    BUREAUX.  167 

away  from  seven  to  ten  millions  of  acres  of  land  ;  three  liun- 
dred  thousand  Indians  are  dealt  with  by  the  Indian  Bureau  ; 
seventeen  thousand  patents  are  applied  for  to  the  Commission- 
er ;  all  the  Pacific  railways  are  superintended  and  subsidized ; 
the  public  buildings  and  property  in  the  United  States  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  and  all  the  territories  are  administered  ; 
two  millions  of  dollars  are  paid  to  the  United  States  Courts ; 
the  whole  of  this  immense  and  various  business  is  transacted 
by  one  man.  The  Secretaryship  of  the  Interior  is  therefore 
one  of  the  very  strongest  positions  in  the  government.  So 
manifold  became  its  duties  that  sometime  ago  the  Agricultu- 
ral Bureau  Avas  endowed  with  a  special  head,  reporting  directly 
to  Congress,  and  moved  out  of  the  o'ercrowded  Patent  Office. 
Now  the  Indian  Bureau  demands  to  be  also  brought  nearer  to  the 
executive  head  of  the  Government,  or  made  independent,  so 
that  its  Commissioner  can'  have  his  legitimate  influence  with 
Congress.  The  Patent  Office  building  is  packed  with  Clerks, 
who  also  occupy  the  whole  or  parts  of  adjacent  buildings,  and 
it  is  demanded  that  a  Department  of  the  Interior  be  built  on 
the  Judiciary  square,  in  the  rear  of  the  city  hall,  with  the  earn- 
ings of  the  Patent  Office. 


MOUNT   VERNOS. 


CHAPTEE  XIII. 


A   PICTURE   OP   MT.    VERNON   IN   1789. 

On  a  Tuesday  morning,  the  14tli  of  April,  1789,  a  venerable 
old  gentleman,  with  fine  eyes,  an  amiable  countenance,  and 
long,  white  locks,  rode  into  the  lawn  of  Mount  Vernon,  coming 
from  Alexandria.  Two  gentlemen  of  the  latter  town  accompa- 
nied him.  It  was  between  10  and  11  o'clock.  A  negro  man 
sallied  out  to  take  the  nags,  and  the  old  gentleman,  entering 
the  mansion,  was  received  by  Mrs.  Washington. 

"  Why,  Mr.  Thompson,"  said  the  good  lady, "  where  are  you 
from,  and  how  are  your  people  ?  " 

"  From  New  York,  Madame,"  answered  the  old  man.  "  I 
come  to  Mount  Vernon  on  a  good  errand,  for  the  country  at 
least.  The  General  has  been  elected  President  of  the  United 
States  under  the  new  Constitution,  and  1  am  the  bearer  of  the 
happy  tidings  in  a  letter  from  John  Langdon,  the  President  of 
the  Senate." 

The  General  was  out  visiting  his  farm,  however,  and  the 
guests  were  entertained  for  two  or  three  hours,  as  we  take  care 


MOUNT  VERNON. 


169 


of  our  visitors  in  the  country  nowadays.  A  glass  of  the  Gen- 
eral's favorite  Madeira,  imported  in  the  cask,  was  probably  not 
the  worst  provision  made  for  them,  and  the  cheerful  gossip  of 
Mrs.  Washington,  who  had  known  Mr.  Thompson,  and  visited 
his  house  in  Philadelphia,  helped  to  enliven  the  time.  This 
grave  and  respectable  old  man  was  the  link  between  the  new 
Government  at  New  York,  and  the  new  Magistrate  at  MounU 
Vernon.  Charles  Thompson  had  been  the  Secretary  through 
all  its  eventful  career  of  the  Continental  Congress  which  had 
directed  the  cause  of  the  Colonies  from  desultory  revolt  to 
Independence  and  to  Union,  and  now  he  had  ridden  over  the 
long  and  difficult  roads  to  apprise  the  first  President  of  the 
Republic  of  the  wishes  of  his  countrymen.  At  1  o'clock.  Gen- 
eral Washington  rode  into  the  lawn  of  Mount  Yernon,  in  ap- 
pearance what  Custis,  his  adopted  son,  has  described  : 

An  old  gentleman,  riding  alone,  in  plain  drab  clothes,  a 
broad-brimmed  white  hat,  a  hickory  switch  in  his  hand,  and 
carrying  an  umbrella  with  a  long  staff,  which  is  attached  to  his 
saddle-bow.  The  umbrella  was  used  to  shelter  him  from  the 
sun,  for  his  skin  was  tender  and  easily  affected  by  its  rays. 

Washington  greeted  Mr.  Thompson  with  grave  cordiality,  as 
was  his  wont,  inquiring  for  his  family,  and  divining  already 
the  object  of  his  visit,  broke  the  seal  of  John  Langdon's  official 
letter.  Dinner  followed,  and,  while  the  visitors  retired  to  con- 
verse or  stroll  about  the  grounds,  the  President-elect  wrote  a 
letter  to  tho  President  of  the  Senate,  and  sent  it  forthwith  to 
the  Post-Office  at  Alexandria  by  a  servant.  The  letter  was  as 
follows : 

"  Mount  Yernon,  April  14th,  1789. 

"  Sir  : — I  had  the  honor  to  receive  your  official  communica- 
tion, by  the  hand  of  Mr.  Secretary  Thompson,  about  1  o'clock 
this  day.  Having  concluded  to  obey  the  important  and  flatter- 
ing call  of  my  country,  and  having  been  impressed  with  the 
idea  of  the  expediency  of  my  being  with  Congress  at  as  early 
a  period  as  possible,  I  propose  to  commence  my  journey  on 
Thursday  morning,  which  will  be  the  day  after  to-morrow." 

This  done,  the  rest  of  the  day  passed  in  conferences  between 


170  MOUNT   VERNON. 

Washington  and  his  wife,  in  the  preparation  of  his  baggage 
for  the  not-unexpected  journey,  while  meantime  the  distin- 
guished guest  was  amused  by  the  young  official  household  in 
the  library  and  grounds. 

At  Mount  Yernon  was  one  of  the  brilliant  Bohemians  of  his 
time,  David  Humphreys,  colonel,  poet,  biographer,  translator 
of  plays,  foreign  traveler,  courtier,  and  delightful  fellow  gen- 
erally, with  locks  like  Hyperion,  a  "  killing  "  countenance,  and 
no  fortune  to  speak  of ;  so  he  had  become  a  permanent  guest 
of  his  old  General.  To  him  Thompson  was  turned  over  for 
hospitality,  and  we  may  suppose  them  mixing  the  grog,  discuss- 
ing France  and  the  pleasures  of  the  Palais  Roy  ale,  and  guessing 
the  names  in  the  new  Cabinet  with  the  staid  Secretary,  Tobias 
Lear,  a  New  Englander,  like  Humphreys ;  while,  perhaps,  the 
latter  recited  his  tolerably  bad  rhymes : 

"  By  broad  Potomack's  azure  tide, 
Where  Vernon's  mount,  in  sylvan  pride, 

Displays  its  beauties  far, 
Great  Washington,  to  peaceful  shades, 
Where  no  unhallowed  wish  invades, 

Retired  from  fields  of  war." 

The  estate  of  Washington  in  this  pleasant  springtime  of  the 
year,  was  well  adapted,  with  its  deep  shade  and  broad,  peaceful 
landscapes,  to  be  the  home  of  the  most  honored  American. 
Amidst  the  long  grass  of  its  lawn  stood  the  mansion  of  Mount 
Vernon,  such  as  we  behold  it  now,  when  it  has  ceased  to  be- 
come a  home,  and  has  become  a  shrine, — a  low-roofed,  painted 
straight  edifice,  with  a  high  piazza  on  the  river-front,  which 
covers  the  two  stories  ;  and  the  whole  is  built  of  wood,  cut  in 
blocks  to  imitate  stone.  The  light  columns  which  uphold  the 
porch  are  also  of  wood,  sanded.  There  are  dormer  wijidows 
in  all  the  four  sloping  sides  of  the  roof,  and  a  cupola  full  of 
wasps'  nests,  surmounts  the  whole,  from  which  you  can  see  the 
long  reaches  of  the  river.  The  house  and  immediate  out-build- 
ings could  be  built,  at  the  present  price  of  lumber  and  labor, 
for  about  thirty  thousand  dollars.      But  nobody  would  now 


MOUNT  VERNON.  171 

build  such  a  house.  Instead  of  the  high,  hollow  portico  cover- 
ing the  whole  front  of  the  building,  we  would  now  put  a  low 
veranda,  and  upper  balconies.  Instead  of  imitating  stone, 
we  would  carve  the  wood  into  pleasing  designs,  or  use  stone 
outright.  The  interior  of  the  mansion  is  pleasantly  habitable 
to  this  day,  but  the  naked,  white-washed  walls  look  very  blank. 
The  rooms  are  generally  low  of  ceiling,  and  we  would  think  it 
a  hardship  to  live  in  the  room  where  the  Hero  of  the  American 
hemisphere  died.  Neither  gas,  nor  water-pipes,  nor  stoves,  nor 
wall-paper,  nor  a  kitchen  under  the  mutual  roof, — ^but  simply  a 
library,  a  drawing-room,  with  a  carved  marble-mantel,  and  an 
old,  rusty,  fine  harpsichord ;  a  hall  through  the  house, — a 
reaching  up  for  grandeur  with  feeble  implements  ;  some  plain 
bed-chambers,  and  a  few  relics  of  the  great  man  ; — this  is 
Mount  Yernon  as  an  abandoned  home.  The  house  is  now 
above  a  century  and  a  quarter  old,  and  good  for  another  century, 
if  pieced  up  and  restored  from  time  to  time.  Back  of  it  a  pair 
of  covered  walks  reach  to  the  clean  negro-quarters,  between 
which  is  seen  a  rear  lawn,  with  garden-walls  on  the  sides  ;  and 
across  the  lawn  passes  the  road  to  Alexandria  and  Fredericks- 
burg, so  often  ridden  by  the  General.  The  gardens  are  of  a 
showy,  imposing  sort.  He  inherited  this  house  from  his  half- 
brother,  and  lived  in  it  for  fifty  years,  not  counting  seven  years 
during  the  Revolution,  when  he  was  absent. 

Washington,  the  son  of  a  second  wife,  had  been  married  to 
a  widow  fifteen  years  when  he  was  put  at  the  head  of  the  Colo- 
nial armies.  He  belonged  to  a  military  and  commercial  fam- 
ily ;  rather  New  Englanders  in  thrift  and  enterprise  than  like 
the  baronial  planters  round  about  them.  But  he  was  a  man 
who  grew  in  every  quality,  except  pecuniary  liberality,  and  no 
book-keeper  in  Connecticut  watched  his  accounts  with  more 
closeness,  although  he  was  very  rich  and  childless.  He  was 
the  most  perfect  fruit  of  virtuous  mediocrity,  and  the  highest 
exemplar  of  a  disciplined  life  which  the  scrupulous,  the  pru- 
dent, and  the  brave  can  study.  Every  triumph  he  had  was  a 
genuine  one,  if  not  a  difiicult  one.     Guizot,  the  best  student  of 


172  MOUNT  VERNON. 

his  larger  life,  who  had  in  his  eye  of  neighborhood  the  careers 
of  all  the  great  men  of  that  quarter  of  a  century,  including 
Bonaparte,  Talleyrand,  and  WeUington,  said  that  Washington's 
power  came  from  his  confidence  in  his  own  views,  and  his  res- 
oluteness in  acting  upon  them  ;  and  that  no  great  man  was 
over  tried  by  all  tests  and  came  out  so  perfectly.  Jefferson 
said  that  he  was  the  only  man  in  the  United  States  who  pos- 
sessed the  confidence  of  all,  and  that  his  executive  talents  were 
superior  to  those  of  any  man  in  the  world.  He  had  wonderful 
power  in  influencing  men  by  honorable  sentiments,  and  he 
never  gave  a  man  an  office  to  quiet  him  or  gain  him  over.  His 
character  was  a  little  picturesque,  but  he  was  as  plain  as  Lin- 
coln in  the  parts  which  he  himself  prescribed. 

In  that  day  Mount  Yernon  had  all  the  fame  it  still  retains. 
Engravings  of  it  were  common  in  Europe  and  America,  and  it 
was  a  place  of  resort  for  the  curious  and  the  eminent,  the 
stranger  and  the  politician,  because  its  proprietor  stood  first 
amongst  the  private  gentlemen  of  the  world.  His  battles  and 
his  wisdom,  his  Republican  principles,  and  the  purity  of  his 
character,  recommended  him  to  men  as  the  living  model  of  all 
that  Rousseau  had  delineated — a  great  unselfish  citizen.  The 
time  had  come  when  the  vague,  poetic,  and  earnest  aspirations 
of  humanity  inclined  towards  this  stamp  of  man.  Europe  did 
not  contain  his  like.  The  mighty  writers  there  had  filled  the 
people  with  a  scorn  for  kings,  while  yet  they  had  not  created 
one  citizen-hero.  Distance  led  them  to  enchantment  with  the 
name  and  person  of  Washington  ;  and  this  was  he,  at  home 
amongst  his  slaves,  with  his  l^usy,  knitting  housewife,  on  the 
high,  sequestered  shores  of  the  Potomac.  He  was  aware  of  his 
fame,  for  every  mail  expressed  it  in  the  eulogies  of  authors, 
journalists,  statesmen,  and  even  princes.  The  gravity  of  pub- 
lic thoughts  and  things  had  deepened  the  shadows  of  a  life  by 
temperament  reflective,  almost  austere  ;  and  this  planter  and 
farmer  had  grown  judicial  in  his  calmness  and  equipoise,  so 
that  he  was  already  a  Magistrate  in  intellect,  and  his  election 
did  not,  probably,  so  much  as  ruffle  his  feelings. 


MOUNT   VERNON.  173 

His  mansion  was  a  museum,  illustrative  of  the  ordinary 
culture  and  tastes  of  a  planter  of  liis  period.  In  liis  parlor, 
doubtless,  were  these  effigies  which  he  had  ordered  from 
France  thirty  years  before. 

"  A  bust  of  Alexander  the  Great  ;  another  of  Julius  Caesar  ; 
another  of  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  ;  another  of  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  of  Prince  Eugene  of  Savoy  ;  and  a  sixth  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great,  King  of  Prussia. 

"  These  are  not  to  exceed  fifteen  inches  in  height,  nor  ten  in 
width. 

"  Two  wild  beasts,  not  to  exceed  twelve  inches  in  height,  nor 
eighteen  inches  in  length. 

"  Sundry  small  ornaments  for  chimney-piece." — (Washing- 
ton's directions  to  liis  foreign  factor.) 

There  had  been  exemplars  of  Washington  at  a  younger 
period,  when  the  military  art  was  his  delight.  During  the  long 
war  of  the  Revolution,  his  estate  had  escaped  pillage,  and  what 
had  since  been  collected  were  mainly  the  gifts  of  friends,  or  the 
reward  of  arms  and  eminence.  But  it  appears  from  what  re- 
mains to  us,  that  Mount  Yernon  was  supplied  with  all  the  com- 
forts and  many  of  the  luxuries  of  his  time, — a  period  when 
foreign  art  and  literature  were  at  a  high  standard,  and  skill 
and  science  had  begun  to  look  for  their  patrons  below  Palaces 
and  Ministers  of  State,  to  the  firesides  of  the  prosperous  mid- 
dle-class. The  social  revolution  had  already  transpired  in 
America  and  in  Europe.  Commerce,  education,  and  accumu- 
lated wealth  had  insensibly  triumphed  over  ranks  and  reveren- 
ces. The  Democratic  age  had  not  fairly  dawned,  but  the  men 
lived  who  were  to  lead  it,  and  at  the  head  of  the  middle  class 
of  conservative  Republicans  in  America  stood  the  men  of  home- 
steads, broad  lands,  and  large  crops,  like  Washington.  They 
were  yet  to  have  a  few  years  of  semi-supremacy  ;  but  a  fiercer 
wave  of  equality  was  gathering  in  the  distance,  which  should 
spare  Mount  Vernon  alone  amongst  family  slirines. 

Washington  was  rich,  but  not  the  richest  of  the  planterSo 
At  least  two  Presidents  were  to  succeed  hiin,  better  burdened 


174  MOUNT   VERNON. 

with  money  and  lands.  He  was,  however,  always  above  the  fear 
of  poverty,  excepting  the  possible  calamities  of  war  ;  and  the 
personal  supervision  of  as  many  acres,  servitors,  and  interests 
would  be  thought  onerous  in  our  time.  Yet  he  was  ever  seek- 
ing, later  in  life,  to  increase  the  revenues  of  his  farms,  to  lease, 
or  to  colonize  them. 

His  property  was  chiefly  in  stock,  slaves,  and  land,  but  the 
land  was  already  showing  signs  of  giving  out,  and  he  made 
reference  more  than  once  to  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland, 
"  Where  their  wheat  is  better  than  ours  can  be,  till  we  get  into 
the  same  good  management." 

Probably  no  account  of  his  estate  can  be  found  so  reliable  as 
that  of  the  President  himself,  written  to  Arthur  Young,  a  cele- 
brated English  authority  on  agricultural  matters,  just  at  the 
close  of  his  first  term  of  office  : 

"  No  estate  in  United  America,"  said  Washington,  "  is  more 
pleasantly  situated  than  this.  It  lies  in  a  high,  dry,  and  healthy 
country,  three  hundred  miles  by  water  from  the  sea,  and,  as 
you  will  see  by  the  plan,  on  one  of  the  finest  rivers  in  the 
world.  Its  margin  is  washed  by  more  than  ten  miles  of  tide- 
water ;  from  the  bed  of  which,  and  the  innumerable  coves,  in- 
lets, and  small  marshes,  with  which  it  abounds,  an  inexhaustible 
fund  of  rich  mud  may  be  drawn,  as  a  manure,  either  to  be  used 
separately  or  in  a  compost,  according  to  tlie  judgment  of  the 
farmer.  It  is  situated  in  a  latitude  between  the  extremes  of 
heat  and  cold,  and  is  the  same  distance  by  land  and  water, 
with  good  roads  and  the  best  navigation,  to  and  from  the 
Federal  City,  Alexandria,  and  Georgetown  ;  distant  from  the 
first,  twelve  ;  from  the  second  nine  ;  and  from  the  last,  sixteen 
miles.  The  Federal  City,  in  the  year  1800,  will  become  the 
seat  of  the  General  Government  of  the  United  States.  It  is 
increasing  fast  in  buildings,  and  rising  into  consequence  ;  and 
will,  I  have  no  doubt,  from  the  advantages  given  to  it  by 
nature,  and  its  proximity  to  a  rich  interior  country,  and  the 
Western  territory,  become  the  emporium  of  the  United 
States." 


MOUNT   VEilNON.  175 

^'  The  soil  of  the  tract  of  which  I  am  speaking  is  a  good 
loam,  more  inclined,  however,  to  clay  than  sand.  From  use, 
and  I  might  add,  abuse,  it  is  become  more  and  more  consol- 
idated, and,  of  course,  heavier  to  work.  The  greater  part 
is  a  grayish  clay  ;  some  part  is  dark  mould  ;  a  very  little  is 
inclined  to  sand  ;  and  scarcely  any  to  stone." 

"  A  husbandman's  wish  would  not  lay  the  farms  more  level 
than  they  are  ;  and  yet  some  of  the  fields,  but  in  no  great 
degree,  are  washed  into  gullies,  from  which  all  of  them  have 
not  yet  recovered." 

"  This  river,  which  encompasses  the  land  the  distance 
above  mentioned,  is  well  supplied  with  various  kinds  of  fish 
at  all  seasons  of  the  year  ;  and  in  the  spring,  with  the  great- 
est profusion  of  shad,  herring,  bass,  carp,  perch,  sturgeon, 
&G.  Several  valuable  fisheries  appertain  to  the  State  ;  the 
whole  shore,  in  short,  is  one  entire  fishery." 

"  There  are,  as  you  Avill  perceive  by  the  plan,  four  farms  be- 
sides that  at  the  mansion-house  ;  these  four  contain  3,260 
acres  of  cultivated  land,  to  which  some  hundreds  more  ad- 
joining, as  may  be  seen,  might  be  added,  if  a  greater  should 
be  required." 

Again,  he  wrote  to  a  foreign  factor,  to  whom  he  shipped 
his  tobacco,  pretty  much  as  Horace  Greeley  might  write  : 

"  I  am  possessed  of  several  plantations  on  this  river  (Poto- 
mac), and  the  fine  lands  of  Shenandoah,  and  should  be  glad 
if  you  would  ingeniously  tell  me  what  prices  I  might  expect 
you  to  render  for  tobacco  made  thereon,  of  the  same  seed  as 
that  of  the  estates,  and  managed  in  every  respect  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  best  tobaccos  on  James  and  York  Rivers 
are." 

It  was  the  custom  of  the  Virginian  j^lanters,  living  upon 
tide-water,  with  the  coasts  deeply  indented  everywhere,  to  ship 
their  crops  direct  from  their  estates  to  Bristol  or  London. 
"Washington  wrote  :  "  The  best  Potomac  harbor  (Piscataway) 
is  within  sight  of  my  door.  It  has  this  great  advantage,  be- 
sides good  anchorage  and  lying  safe  from  the  winds,  that  it  is 


176  MOUNT   VERNON. 

out  of  the  way  of  the  worm,  which  is  very  hurtful  to  shipping 
a  little  lower  down,  and  lies  in  a  very  plentiful  part  of  the 
country.'^ 

The  manner  of  putting  crops  aboard  ship  was  generally  by 
the  use  of  scows,  which  could  come  up  the  shallow  streams. 
Thus,  he  wrote  : 

"  So  soon  as  Mr.  Lund  Washington  returns  from  Frederick, 
I  shall  cause  my  wheat  to  be  delivered  at  your  landing,  on 
Four  Miles  Run  Creek,  if  flats  can  get  to  it  conveniently." 

A  few  passages  from  the  correspondence  of  Washington  will 
make  plain  his  mode  of  life  and  his  business  habits.  He  was 
always  minute  in  his  instructions  to  his  superintendent,  as 
thus,  when  closing  up  a  notification  to  build  roads  : 

"  At  all  times  they  must  proceed  in  the  manner  which  has 
been  directed  formerly  ;  and,  in  making  the  new  roads  from 
the  Ferry  to  the  Mill,  and  from  the  Tumbling  Dam  across  the 
Neck,  till  it  communicate  with  the  Alexandria  road,  as  has 
been  pointed  out  on  the  spot." 

This  shows  that,  though  a  planter,  he  was  always  a  man  ot 
affairs,  having  personal  cognizance  of  all  belonging  to  him. 

Again  : 

"  When  the  brick  work  is  executed  at  the  Ferry  Barn,  Gun- 
ner and  Davis  must  repair  to  Doque  Run,  and  make  bricks 
there,  at  the  place  and  in  the  manner  which  have  been 
directed,  that  I  may  have  no  salmon  bricks  in  that  build- 
ing. 

"  Oyster  shells  should  be  bought  wherever  they  are  offered 
for  sale,  if  good,  and  on  reasonable  terms." 

As  a  landlord  and  creditor,  Washington  was  exacting  but 
not  harsh.  The  year  he  was  elected  President,  he  wrote  as  to 
the  collection  of  rents  and  debts  : 

"  Little  is  expected  from  the  justice  of  those  who  have  been 
long  indulged." 

To  his  wife,  grandchildren,  and  his  own  nephews  and  nieces, 
he  was  provident,  but  still  never  lavish.  In  the  same  year 
as  above  he  wrote  to  certain  needy  ones  : 


MOUNT  VERNON.  .^_.  177 

"  You  will  use  j^our  best  endeavors  to  obtain  the  means  for 
support  of  G.  and  L.  Washington,  who,  I  expect,  will  board, 
till  something  further  can  be  decided  on,  with  Dr.  Ceaik,  who 
must  be  requested  to  see  that  they  are  decently  and  properly 
provided  with  clothes  from  Mr.  Porter's  store.  He  will  give 
them  a  credit  on  my  becoming  answerable  to  him  for  the  pay- 
ment. And,  as  I  know  of  no  resource  that  H.  has  for  supplies 
but  from  me,  Fanny  will,  from  time  to  time,  as  occasion  may 
require,  have  such  things  got  for  her,  on  my  account,  as  she 
shall  judge  necessary." 

These  paragraphs  convey  to  us,  as  fully  as  the  twelve  volumes 
of  Sparks,  the  tone  of  the  first  Magistrate  in  affairs  of  private 
life.  His  estate,  like  that  of  many  Virginians,  labored  under 
disadvantages  Irom  the  unthrifty  agriculture  of  slaves,  and  the 
sort  ot  improvidence  which  large  estates  seem  to  necessitate. 
Seven  years  after  the  period  at  which  this  chapter  begins,  he 
said  : 

"  From  what  I  have  said,  that  the  present  prices  of  land  in 
Pennsylvania  are  higher  than  they  are  in  Maryland  or  Vir- 
ginia, although  they  are  not  of  superior  quality,  two  reasons 
have  already  been  assigned :  First,  that  in  the  settled  part  of 
it,  the  land  is  divided  into  smaller  farms,  and  is  more  im- 
proved ;  and,  secondly,  it  is  in  a  greater  degree  than  any  other 
the  receptacle  of  emigrants,  who  receive  their  first  impressions 
in  Philadelphia,  and  rarely  look  beyond  the  limits  of  tho  State. 
But  besides  these,  two  other  causes,  not  a  little  operative,  may 
be  added,  namely:  that  until  Congress  passed  general  laws 
relative  to  naturalization  and  citizenship,  foreigners  found  it 
easier  to  obtain  the  privileges  annexed  to  them  in  Pennsyl- 
vania than  elsewhere;  and  because  there  are  laws  there  for 
the  gradual  abolition  of  slavery,  which  neither  of  the  two 
states  above-mentioned  have  at  present,  but  wliich  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that  they  must  have,  and  at  a  period  not 
remote." 

Unfortunately  the  first  President  failod  to  give  his  active 
support  to  emancipation,  and  those  laws  were  delayed  for 
seventy  years. 


178  DECAY   OP  VIRGINIA. 

The  neighbors  of  Washington  were,  in  some  cases,  of  even 
greater  social  consideration  than  himself.  Of  the  adjoining 
State  he  said  : 

"  Within  full  view  of  Mount  Yernon,  separated  therefrom 
by  water  only,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  seats  on  the  river 
for  sale,  but  of  greater  magnitude  than  you  seem  to  have 
contemplated.  It  is  called  Bel  voir,  and  belonged  to  George 
William  Fairfax,  who,  were  he  living,  would  now  be  Baron  of 
Cameron,  as  his  younger  brother  in  this  country  (George 
William  dying  without  issue)  at  present  is,  though  he  does 
not  take  upon  liimself  the  title." 

The  land  of  the  neighborhood,  at  the  time  we  have  indicated, 
sold  at  a  good  price,  for  he  says  at  Fairfax  : 

"  A  year  or  two  ago,  the  price  he  fixed  on  the  land,  as  I 
have  been  well  informed,  was  thirty-three  dollars  and  a  third 
per  acre." 

In  the  lifetime  of  Washington,  the  slow  and  henceforth 
steady  decay  of  Virginia  lands  began.  His  own  cherished 
fields  steadily  declined  after  his  death,  and  will  not  now, 
probably,  bring  as  much  per  acre  as  when  he  died.  His  chief 
crops  were  wheat  and  tobacco,  and  these  were  very  large, — so 
large  that  vessels  sometimes  came  up  the  Potomac,  took  the 
tobacco  and  flour  directly  from  his  own  wharf,  a  little  below 
his  deer-park,  in  front  of  his  mansion,  and  carried  them  to 
England  or  the  West  Indies.  So  noted  were  these  products 
for  their  quality,  and  so  faithfully  were  they  put  up,  that  any 
flour  bearing  the  brand  of  "  George  Washington,  Mount 
Vernon,"  was  said  to  liave  been  exempted  from  the  customary 
inspection  in  the  British  West  India  ports.  Such  was  the 
home  of  Washington,  where  he  spent  the  days  of  his  private 
life,  and  his  domestic  enjoyments  were  of  a  dutiful  rather  than 
of  an  enthusiastic  sort. 

His  mother  lived  until  he  was  fifty-seven  years  old,  but  his 
father  died  when  he  was  eleven.  His  wife  was  rich,  but  not 
accomplished,  and  he  set  free  124  slaves  at  his  death.  He 
always  rose  to  the  needs  of  history,  and,  if  his  household  seems 


MOUNT  VERNON.  179 

to  lack  pathetic  and  feminine  features,  that  is,  perhaps, 
because  he  was  never  out  of  the  public  regard,  because  he  had 
no  children,  and  also,  possibly,  because 'he  was  unfortunate  in 
all  his  early  loves.  There  are  half-a-dozen  cases  on  record  of 
his  direct  rejection  by  ladies  to  whom  he  proposed. 

Bisliop  Meade,  the  devout  and  careful  chronicler  of  Yir- 
ginia,  received  the  following  note  from  one  of  the  family  of 
Fauntleroy : 

"  My  grandfather  (who  was  called  Colonel  William  Faunt 
Le  Roy)  was  twice  married.  By  the  first  wife  he  had  one 
daughter  (Elizabeth),  who  became  the  wife  of  Mr.  Adams  of 
James  River,  after  having  refused  her  hand  to  General  George 
Washington." 

On  this  the  Bishop  remarked :  "  It  would  seem  from  the 
foregoing,  and  from  what  may  be  read  in  my  notice  of  Mr. 
Edward  Ambler  and  his  wife,  and  from  what  Mr.-  Irving  and 
other  writers  have  conjectured  concerning  Miss  Grymes  of 
Middlesex,  and  perhaps  one  other  lady  in  the  land,  that 
General  Washington,  in  his  earlier  days,  was  not  a  favorite 
with  the  ladies.  If  the  family  tradition  respecting  his  repeated 
rejections  be  true, — for  which  I  would  not  vouch, — it  may  be 
accounted  for  in  several  ways.  He  may  have  been  too  modest 
and  diffident  a  young  man  to  interest  the  ladies,  or  he  was  too 
poor  at  that  time  ;  or  he  had  not  received  a  college  or  univer- 
sity education  in  England  or  Virginia ;  or,  as  is  most  probable, 
God  had  reserved  him  for  greater  things, — was  training  him 
up  in  the  camp  for  the  defense  of  his  country.  An  early  mar- 
riage might  have  been  injurious  to  his  future  usefulness." 

Much  of  his  life  was  passed  in  camps,  and  in  lonely  surveys, 
and  he  made  himself  by  acceptance,  instead  of  choice,  a  rigid 
historical  being.  He  was  worth,  during  all  his  married  life, 
about  $100,000  sterling,  not  counting  his  slaves  as  mer- 
chandise, and  it  paid  him  not  above  3  or  4  per  cent  in  money, 
or  about  $20,000  per  annum. 

In  this  quiet,  almost  elegant  home,  he  received  many 
princes,   exiles,   and  refined  travelers,  lured  so   far  by  the 


180  CHARACTER  AND   GENIUS   OF   WASHINGTON. 

report  of  his  deeds  and  character.  He  disappointed  not  one 
of  whom  we  have  any  record,  and  his  neighbors,  as  well  as 
those  remote,  forgot  his  austerities  in  his  integrity.  We  could 
have  placed  no  more  composed  and  godlike  character  at  the 
fountain  of  our  young  State;  and  his  image,  growing  grander 
as  the  stream  has  expanded,  is  reflected  yet  in  every  ripple  of  ; 
the  river.  We  have  grown  more  Democratic  since  his  time, ' 
and  we  often  wish  that  Washington  had  been  more  pliable, 
popular,  and  affable  ;  but  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  he  was  a 
Republican,  and  not  a  Democrat.  "  As  one  of  his  federalistic 
observers  has  said  of  his  day  : 

"  Democracy,  as  a  theory,  was  not  as  yet.  Tlie  habits  and 
manners  of  the  people  were,  indeed,  essentially  Democratic 
in  their  simplicity  and  equality  of  condition,  but  this  might 
exist  under  any  form  of  Government.  Their  Governments 
were  then  purely  Republican.  They  had  gone  but  a  short  way 
into  those  philosophical  ideas  which  characterized  the  subse- 
quent and  real  revolution  in  France.  The  gieat  State  papers 
of  American  liberty  were  all  predicated  on  the  abuse  of 
chartered,  not  abstract  rights."  (Note — Gibbs'  Life  ot 
Wolcott.) 

As  an  original  suggestor,  Washington  was  wise,  without 
genius.  His  designs  were  all  bounded  by  law,  the  rights  of 
others,  and  the  intelligent  prejudices  of  his  time.  He  told 
Coke,  the  Methodist,  that  he  was  inimical  to  slavery.  The 
better  elements  of  our  age  were  all  intelligent,  and  growing  in 
him.  But  the  mighty  whirlwind  raised  by  Rousseau,  and  by 
Jefferson,  blew  upon  the  country,  and  we  are  what  we  are, 
while  Washington  and  Lafayette,  soldier  and  pupil,  stand  the 
only  consistent  great  figures  of  the  two  hemispheres, — the  last 
Republicans  of  the  school  of  Milton  and  Hampden.  Such  as 
he  was,  there  he  lived,  and  the  vestiges  of  the  breaking  up  of 
the  past  are  all  round  his  honored  mansion, — tlie  key  of  the 
Bastile ;  his  surveyor's  tripod,  which  first  measured  the 
streams  beyond  the  Alleghanies,  and,  at  last,  the  forts  which 
the  North  planted  against  Virginia  slavery. 


MOUNT   VERNON.  181 

The  life  of  Washington  at  Mount  Yernon,  subsequent  to  the 
War,  had  been  lived  with  that  rigid  method  which  he  pre- 
scribed for  himself  at  an  early  age.  Temperate,  yet  not 
disdaining  the  beverage  of  a  gentleman  of  that  time,  and 
dividing  the  day  between  clerical  and  out-of-door  duties,  he 
had  escaped  other  diseases  than  those  incident  to  camp-life, 
and  he  was  not  fond  of  the  prolonged  convivialities  of  the 
table.  His  breaktast  hour  was  seven  o'clock  in  summer,  and 
eight  in  winter,  and  he  dined  at  three.  He  always  ate 
heartily,  but  he  was  no  epicure.  His  usual  beverage  was 
small-beer  or  cider  and  Madeira  wine.  He  took  tea  and  toast, 
or  a  little  well-baked  bread  early  in  the  evening,  conversed 
with  or  read  to  his  family,  when  there  were  no  guests,  and 
usually,  whether  there  was  company  or  not,  retired  for  the 
night  at  about  nine  o'clock. 

He  loved  Mount  Yernon,  and  had  never  expressed  a  desire  to 
change  its  retirement  for  the  concerns  of  a  denser  society  ;  but 
the  wish  seems  to  have  been  fixed  in  his  heart  at  an  early  period, 
to  see  the  banks  of  the  Potomac  become  the  seat  of  a  great  city. 
Annapolis,  Baltimore,  and  Fredericksburg,  were  each  a  stout 
day's  journey  from  his  estate,  and  Georgetown  and  Alexandria, 
were  his  post-office  and  market  places.  It  had  now  been  fifteen 
years  since  he  had  considered  the  subject  of  breaking  his  alle- 
giance to  his  King  and  England,  and  fully  half  the  time  had 
been  spent  away  from  his  estate. 

During  more  than  seven  years  of  the  war,  Washington  had 
visited  his  pleasant  home  upon  the  Potomac  but  once,  and  then 
only  for  three  days  and  nights.  Mrs.  Washington  spent  the 
winter  in  camp  with  her  husband,  but  generally  returned  to 
Mount  Yernon  during  his  campaigns. 

From  this  mansion  he  had  departed  to  take  part  in  the  first 
Continental  Congress,  as  one  of  the  four  delegates  from  Yirginia, 
when,  in  the  language  of  a  diligent  historian,  on  Wednesday 
morning,  the  31st  of  August,  1774,  two  men  approaching  Mount 
Yernon  on  horseback,  came  to  accompany  him.  One  of  them 
was  a  slender  man,  very  plainly  dressed  in  a  suit  of  minister's 


182  AN  EMINENT   COUNCIL. 

gray,  and  about  40  years  of  age.  The  other  was  his  senior  in 
years,  likewise  of  slender  form,  and  a  face  remarkable  for  its 
expression  of  unclouded  intelligence.  He  was  more  carefully 
dressed,  more  polished  in  manners,  and  much  more  fluent  in 
conversation  than  his  companion.  They  reached  Mount  Vernon 
at  7  o'clock,  and  after  an  exchange  of  salutations  with  Wash- 
ington and  his  family,  and  partaking  of  breaktast,  the  three 
retired  to  the  library,  and  were  soon  deeply  absorbed  in  the 
discussion  of  the  novel  questions  then  agitating  the  people  of 
the  Colonies.  The  two  travelers  were  Patrick  Henry  and 
Edmund  Pendleton.  A  third,  "  the  silver-tongued  Cicero"  of 
Virginia,  B,ichard  Henry  Lee,  was  expected  with  them,  but  he 
had  been  detained  at  Chantilly,  his  seat  in  Westmoreland. 

All  day  long  these  eminent  Virginians  were  in  council ;  and, 
early  the  next  morning,  they  set  out  for  Philadelphia  on  horse- 
back, to  meet  the  patriots  from  other  Colonies,  there.  Will 
Lee,  Washington's  huntsman  and  favorite  body-servant,  was 
the  only  attendant  upon  Washington.  They  crossed  the  Poto- 
mac at  the  falls,  (now  Georgetown,)  and  rode  far  on  toward 
Baltimore  before  the  twilight.  On  the  4th  of  September,  the 
day  before  the  opening  of  the  Congress,  they  breakfasted  at 
Christina  Ferry,  (now  Wilmington,)  and  dined  at  Chester ;  and 
that  night  Washington,  according  to  his  diary,  "  lodged  at  Dr. 
Shippen's  in  Philadelphia,  after  supping  at  the  New  Tavern." 
At  that  house  of  public  entertainment,  he  liad  lodged  nearly 
two  years  before,  while  on  his  way  to  New  York,  to  place  young 
Custis,  his  wife's  son,  in  King's  (now  Columbia)  College. 
With  that  journey  in  1774,  began  the  glorious  period  of  this 
Virginia  planter's  career.  Even  at  that  date,  he  drew  upon 
himseU  the  admiration  of  the  best  of  his  contemporaries,  and 
John  Adams — now  elected  Vice-President  with  him — wrote  to 
Elbridge  Gerry — subsequently  to  be  Vice-President  with  Presi- 
dent Madison — this  warm  compliment  in  his  favor : 

"  Tliere  is  something  charming  tome  in  the  conduct  of  Wash- 
ington. A  gentleman  of  one  of  the  first  fortunes  upon  the 
continent,  leaving  his  delicious  retirement,  his  family  and  friends, 


MOUNT  VERNON.  183 

sacrificing  his  ease,  and  hazarding  all  in  the  cause  of  his  coun- 
try !  His  views  are  noble  and  disinterested.  He  declared, 
when  he  accepted  the  mighty  trust,  that  he  would  lay  before  us 
an  exact  account  of  his  expenses,  and  not  accept  a  shilling  for 

pay." 

The  history  of  the  war  which  speedily  followed  that  first  Con- 
gress is  mainly  the  career  of  Washington.  He  was  a  persever- 
ing, a  prudent,  and  a  magnanimous  captain,  and  his  character 
grew  round  and  lustrous  as  the  independence  of  the  country 
advanced.  Foreign  nobles,  countries,  and  officers  did  him  rever- 
ence, and  his  behavior  was  always  modest,  grave,  and  yet  cheer- 
ful, so  that  he  neither  made  enemies  nor  provoked  severe 
analysis ;  and  he  set  the  example  of  obedience  to  the  civil 
powers,  so  that  his  army  graduated  in  the  love  of  law,  and  their 
transition  to  citizens  became  as  natural  as  his  own  to  the  First 
Magistracy.  If  he  had  not  the  military  genius  of  Bonaparte, 
he  had  not  also  the  love  of  blood  and  of  violence  in  the  same  ar- 
bitrary degree.  As  has  been  well  said,"  war  was  to  him  only  a 
means,  always  kept  subordinate  to  the  main  and  final  object, — 
the  success  of  the  cause,  the  independence  of  the  country."  As 
a  captain,  he  was  subject  to  none  of  the  petty  and  irritable  jeal- 
ousies so  common  with  conquerors  ;  and  he  saw,  without  chagrin 
and  ill  humor,  the  successes  of  his  inferiors  in  command.  Still 
more,  he  supplied  them  largely  with  the  means  and  opportunity 
of  gaining  them.  Only  once  was  he  tempted  with  the  anony- 
mous proffer  of  a  crown,  and  he  rebuked  it ;  and  the  fomentor 
of  the  single  conspiracy  against  him  wrote  in  remorse,  "  you 
are,  in  my  eyes,  the  great  and  good  man." 

When  the  armies  disbanded,  and  he  had  bidden  adieu  to  his 
companions  and  staff  at  New  York,  and  delivered  up  his  com- 
mission at  Annapolis,  he  made  one  or  two  of  those  long  journeys 
of  which  he  was  so  fond,  and  which  acquainted  him  so  well 
with  the  needs  and  capacities  of  the  future  State,  and  then  he 
sought  the  society  of  his  wife  and  the  congenial  pursuits  of 
agriculture.  But  one  of  his  fame  and  large  acquaintance  could 
no  more  bo  permitted  to  dwell  in  solitude.     For  some  lime, 


184  GEN.    WASHINGTON   AS   A   PRIVATE   GENTLEMAN. 

indeed,  after  his  return  to  Mount  Yernon,  Washington  was  in 
a  manner  locked  up  by  the  ice  and  snow  of  an  uncommonly 
rigorous  winter,  so  that  social  intercourse  was  interrupted,  ar\d 
he  could  not  even  pay  a  visit  of  duty  and  affection  to  his  aged 
mother  at  Fredericksburg.  But  it  was  enough  for  him  at  pres- 
ent that  he  was  at  length  at  home  at  Mount  Yernon.  Yet  the 
habitudes  of  the  camp  still  haunted  him  ;  he  could  hardly  realize 
tliat  he  was  free  from  military  duties ;  on  waking  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  almost  expected  to  hear  the  drum  going  its  stirring 
rounds  and  beating  the  reveille. 

As  spring  advanced,  however,  Mount  Yernon,  as  had  been 
anticipated,  began  to  attract  numerous  visitors.  They  were 
received  in  the  frank,  unpretending  style  Washington  had  deter- 
mined upon.  It  was  said  to  be  pleasant  to  behold  how  easily 
and  contentedly  he  subsided  from  the  authoritative  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  armies,  into  the  quiet  country  gentleman.  There 
was  nothing  awkward  or  violent  in  the  transition.  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington, too,  who  had  presided  with  quiet  dignity  at  headquar- 
ters,  and  cheered  the  wintry  gloom  of  Yalley  Forge  with  her 
presence,  presided  with  equal  amenity  and  grace  at  the  simple 
board  of  Mount  Yernon.  She  had  a  cheerful  good  sense,  that 
always  made  her  an  agreeable  companion,  and  was  an  excellent 
manager.  She  had  been  remarked  for  an  inveterate  habit  of 
knitting.  It  had  been  acquired,  or  at  least  fostered,  in  the 
wintry  encampments  of  the  Revolution,  where  she  used  to  set  an 
example  to  her  lady  visitors  by  diligently  applying  her  needles, 
knitting  stockings  for  the  destitute  soldiery.  While  Washington 
was  waited  upon  by  scholars,  inventors,  suggestors,  and  people 
with  projects  of  material,  moral,  and  intellectual  improve- 
ments,— and  the  two  hundred  folio  volumes  of  his  writings  and 
correspondence  attest  how  engaged  he  was  for  the  five  years 
between  the  peace  and  the  Presidency, — his  wife  was  busied 
with  the  care  of  her  orphan  grandchildren. 

There  was  another  female  dear  to  the  newly-elected  President, 
and  he  kept  her  in  filial  remembrance  at  the  very  moment  of 
his  greatest  promotion.     It  was  growing  late  in  the  evening  of 


MOUNT   VERNON.  185 

the  day  on  whicli  our  chapter  opens,  when  "Washington  mounted 
his  horse,  and,  followed  by  his  man  Billy,  rode  off  into  the 
woods  of  Virginia  with  speed.  His  destination  was  Fredericks- 
burg, nearly  forty  miles  away,  with  two  ferries  between, — one 
at  the  Occoquan,  the  other  at  the  Rappahannock.  His  purpose 
was  to  see  his  old  mother,  now  over  eighty  years  of  age,  and 
drawing  near  the  grave.  It  had  been  long  since  he  had  visited 
her,  but  he  could  not  feel  equal  to  the  responsibilities  of  his  great 
office  until  he  should  receive  her  blessing.  Few  candidates  for 
the  Presidency  in  our  day  would  leave  a  warm  mansion,  filled 
with  congratulating  friends,  to  ride  all  night  through  the  chilly 
April  mists,  to  say  adieu  to  a  very  old  woman.  But  thus  piously 
the  administration  of  Washington  began.  He  passed  old  Po- 
hick  Church,  of  which  he  was, a  Vestryman, — soon  to  tumble 
to  ruins, — crossed  the  roaring  Occoquan,  and  by  its  deep  and 
picturesque  gorge,  where  passed  the  waters  of  the  future  bloody 
Bull  Bun,  and,  by  night,  he  saw  the  old  churches  of  Acquia 
and  Potomac  rise  against  the  sky  ;  he  saw  the  decaying  sea- 
port of  Dumfries.  In  the  morning,  he  was  at  Fredericksburg, 
and  his  mother  was  in  his  arms.  Marches,  perils,  victories, 
honors,  powers,  surrendered  to  that  piteous  look  of  helpless 
love,  too  deep  for  pride  to  show  through  its  tears.  And  the 
President  of  the  new  State  was  to  her  a  new-born  babe  again, 
— no  dearer,  no  greater.  He  was  just  in  time,  for  she  had  but 
the  short  season  of  summer  to  live,  and,  like  many  dying 
mothers,  life  seemed  upheld,  at  four-score  and  five,  by  w^aiting 
love  till  he  should  come.  History  is  ceremonious  as  to  wliat 
passed  between  them,  but  the  parting  was  solemn  and  touch- 
ing, like  the  event. 

"  You  will  see  me  no  more,"  she  said,  "  my  great  age  and 
disease  warn  me  that  I  shall  not  be  long  in  this  world.  But 
go,  George,  to  fulfil  the  destiny  which  Heaven  appears  to  as- 
sign you.  Go,  my  son,  and  may  Heaven's  and  your  mother's 
blessing  be  with  you  always." 

Passing  from  that  dear,  pathetic  presence,  the  President 
elect,  perhaps,  did  not  hear  the  plaudits  of  the  people  in  tho 


186  MOUNT   VERNON. 

streets  of  Fredericksburg.  He  rode  all  day  by  the  road  he  jfiad 
come,  and  reached  Mount  Yernon  before  evening,  having  ex- 
hibited his  power  of  endurance  at  the  age  of  57,  by  riding 
eighty  miles  in  twenty-four  hours. 

His  good  wife  had  made  all  ready  ;  the  equipage  and  bag- 
gage were  at  the  door  next  morning  ;  and,  leaving  Mrs. 
Washington  and  most  of  the  household  behind,  he  set  out  for 
New  York  at  10  o'clock  on  Thursday,  the*  16th  of  April, 
accompanied  by  Thompson  and  Humphreys.  The  new  State 
was  waiting  anxiously  for  its  Magistrate. 


CHAPTER    XIY. 


CURIOSITIES  OP  THE    GREAT  BUREAUX   OP   THE  GOVERNMENT. 

Few  readers  have  ever  pushed  into  the  queer  nooks  and 
queerer  documents  around  the  Capitol  which  exhibit  the  multi- 
fold operations  of  a  modern  government. 

Let  us  run  over  some  items  of  what  is  called  the  Legislative, 
Executive,  and  Judicial  Appropriation  Bill,  selecting  the  Bill 
of  1871  which  was  passed  by  a  relatively  honest  Congress. 

CONGRESS. 

Do  you  know  what  it  costs  to  pay  the  Senators'  salaries  and 
mileage  per  annum  ?  Four  hundred  thousand  dollars  !  Cheap 
at  half  the  money !  Do  you  know  what  it  costs  the  House  for 
the  same  ?  One  million  !  But  halt !  The  officers,  clerks,  and 
messengers  of  the  Senate  get,  besides,  $130,000  ;  and  the  same 
officers  of  the  House  get  about  $200,000.  The  police,  who 
patrol  the  Capitol,  and  sit  around  the  little  parks  enclosing  it, 
cost  $43,000.  The  stationery  and  newspapers  of  the  Senate 
cost  about  $14,000,  and  for  the  House  $37,000.  The  little 
pages,  who  run  around  the  floor,  cost  in  the  House  $7,600,  and 
in  the  Senate  $8,000.  What  does  the  Senate  want  with  so 
many  pages,  when  the  more  numerous  body  requires  so  few  ? 

It  costs  the  Senate  $46,000  for  packing-boxes,  folding  docu- 
ments, furniture,  fuel,  gas,  and  furniture-wagons.  It  costs  tlie 
House,  for  wagons  and  cartage,  $16,000.  The  Committee 
clerks  of  the  House  cost  $33,000,  and  of  the  Senate  $25,000. 


188  SALARIES   OP   OFFICIALS. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Senate  and  Clerk  of  the  House  get  84,320 
each,  and  the  Librarian  of  Congress  gets  84,000.  All  the 
clerks  of  the  Library  of  Congress,  taken  together,  require  $26,' 
000  a  year  ;  and  the  library  is  allowed  only  $12,500  per  annum 
to  buy  books,  purchase  files  of  periodicals  and  newspapers,  and 
exchange  public  documents  with  foreign  Governments. 

Public  printing  costs  an  enormous  sum,  and  the  appropria- 
tions almost  always  fall  short.  Still,  it  is  questionable  whether, 
on  the  whole,  we  do  not  dignify  ourselves,  and  confer  benefit 
on  the  country  by  maintaining,  as  we  undoubtedly  do,  the  most 
perfect  printing  establishment  in  the  world,  not  excepting  Na- 
poleon's printing  house  in  Paris  as  it  used  to  be  maintained. 
For  the  present  year,  there  will  be  appropriated  for  the  public 
printing,  8655,000  for  composition  and  press  work;  8709,000 
for  paper  to  print  upon  ;  8552,000  for  binding  books,  and  8T5,- 
000  for  engraving  and  map-printing. 

Coming  to  Executive  appropriations,  we  find  that  two  police- 
men, two  night-watchmen,  a  door-keeper,  and  an  assistant 
door-keeper,  at  the  White  House  cost  unitedly  88,000.  The 
President's  Private  Secretary  gets  83,500  ;  his  assistant  82,500  ; 
two  of  the  President's  clerks  82,300  each ;  the  White  House 
steward,  who  buys  the  grub  and  gets  up  the  dinners,  $2,000  ; 
and  the  messenger  81,200. 

At  the  State  Department,  it  costs  812,000  to  publish  the  laws 
in  pamphlet  forms ;  and  for  proof-reading,  packing  the  laws 
and  documents  off  to  our  Consuls,  and  such,  we  spend  847,000 
annually.  The  eternal  Mexican  Commission  costs  us  828,700 
a  year,  and  our  Commissioner  gets  84,700,  and  the  umpire, 
who  lives  out  of  town  and  is  seldom  called  on,  83,000.  The 
Spanish  Commission  costs  us  815,000.  The  High  Joint  busi- 
ness at  Geneva  was  provided  for  by  a  special  appropriation  of 
8250,000.    They  drink  over  there  nothing  less  than  chambertin. 

At  the  Treasury  Department  are  required  for  the  Secretary, 
his  assistants  and  immediate  clerks,  8384,000.  What  is  a 
char-woman  ?  There  are  here  provided  for,  ninety  char-women, 
at  8180  a  year  each.     These  are,  indeed,  scrub  wages.     The 


CURIOSITIES   OF   THE   BUREAUX.  180 

Architect's  office,  presided  over  by  the  great  Inigo  Jones  Mullett, 
costs  about  827,000.  This  bill  provides  that,  from  the  contin- 
gent expense  appropriation  of  $100,000,  no  part  shall  be  ex- 
pended for  clericd  hire.  The  Comptrollers  of  the  Treasury- 
cost,  unitedly,  f  11,500.  The  office  of  the  Commissioner  of 
Customs  at  Washington  costs  $37,000.  The  Auditors'  offices 
cost  as  follows  :  First  Auditor,  $58,000  ;  Second,  $384,000  ; 
Third,  $289,000  ;  Fourth,  $83,000  ;  Fifth,  $60,000  ;  and  the 
Special  Auditor  of  the  Treasury  for  the  Post-Office  Department 
requires  $267,000.  Uncle  Spinner,  the  Treasurer,  demands 
for  his  office  $189,000.  The  office  of  the  Register  of  the 
Treasury  requires  $85,000  besides  additional  compensation  at 
the  discretion  of  the  Secretary.  The  office  of  the  Comp- 
troller of  Currency  absorbs  $117,000.  The  Commissioner  of 
Internal  Revenue  demands  merely  for  office  assistance,— including 
Commissioner's  salary  of  $6,000, — $364,000.  His  dies,  paper, 
and  stamps  cost  $400,000.  To  pay  throughout  the  country 
the  different  Collectors,  Assessors,  Supervisors,  Detectives,  and 
Storekeepers,  the  Revenue  Bureau  demands  $4,700,000.  To 
punish  violators  ot  the  Internal  Revenue  laws,  $30,000  arc  a}> 
propriated.  The  Lighthouse' Board  costs,  to  keep  up  the  Wash- 
ington Office,  $14,000.  The  Bureau  of  Statistics  costs  $65,000. 
The  stationery  of  the  Treasury  costs  $45,000  ;  its  postage, 
newspapers,  seals,  brooms,  pails,  lye,  sponge,  etc.,  $65,000 ;  its 
furniture,  $25,000  ;  its  gas,  fuel,  and  drinking  water,  $40,000. 
Besides,  the  Secretary  is  allowed  $45,000  tor  temporary  clerks. 
Perhaps  you  were  not  aware  that  we  have  an  Independent 
Treasurer  in  this  country.  We  have.  His  office  is  in  New 
York,  and  he  gets  $8,000  a  year  personally,  while  his  clerks 
receive  $140,000.  The  office  of  the  Assistant  Treasurer  at 
Boston  costs  $33,000,  at  San  Francisco  $21,000,  at  Philadel- 
phia $36,000,  at  St.  Louis  $16,000,  at  New  Orleans  $14,000, 
at  Charleston,  S.  C,  $10,000,  and  at  Baltimore  $24,000. 
The  Treasury's  Depositaries  require,  to  pay  salaries,  $10,000 
at  Cincinnati,  at  Louisville  $6,000,  at  Pittsburgh  $4,000,  and 
at  Santa  Fd  $5,000.     It  costs  $6,000  to  pay  Special  Agents  to 


190  SALARIES   OF   OFFICIALS. 

examine  these  Depositaries.  Then  you  come  to  the  matter  of 
Mints.  The  chief  officers  ot  the  Philadelphia  Mint  require 
038,000  per  annum,  the  workmen  $125,000,  and  for  incidental 
and  contingent  expenses,  besides,  $35,000, — in  all  about  1200,- 
000.  The  Mint  at  San  Francisco  costs  8290,000,  to  pay  sala- 
ries and  wages  next  year;  at  Carson  City  $90,000,  at  Denver 
$30,000,  at  Charlotte,  N'.  C,  $4,500,  (provided  the  Mint  be  not 
abolished  this  year,  as  it  will  probably  be.)  The  Assay  office 
in  New  York  costs  $118,000,  and  at  Boise  City  $12,000.  On 
the  whole,  we  pay  a  good  deal  of  money  in  the  way  of  salaries, 
considering  we  see  so  little  coin  floating  around.  If  these 
Mint-men  cannot  diffiise  hard  money  more,  there  ought  to  be 
some  curtailment  of  their  appropriations. 

Arizona  costs  us  for  salaries  $14,000  a  year,  and  there  is  a 
proposition  also  to  pay  its  noble  Legislature — that  Legislature 
which  fell  upon  the  Apaches  like  Joal's  band  and  slew  them — 
$20,000,  including  their  mileage.  We  pay  Colorado,  out  of 
the  National  Treasury,  $14,000,  and  nothing  is  said  about 
mileage  or  paying  the  Legislature.  We  pay  Dakota  $54,000 
for  officers,  and  $20,000  for  its  Legislature.  Idaho  gets  $15,- 
000,  and  $20,000  for  the  Legislature.  Montana,  New  Mexico, 
Utah,  Washington,  Wyoming,  get  nothing  for  their  Legislatures, 
but  cost  us  for  officials  $15,000  apiece,  and  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia costs  the  Federal  Government,  for  salaries,  $28,000. 

The  office  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  costs,  for  clerks 
immediately  around  his  person,  $47,000  ;  for  watchmen,  $21,- 
000 ;  for  stationery  and  packing,  $16,000  ;  and  for  rents  and 
repairs,  $26,000.  The  Land  Office  costs,  for  clerks,  $53,000; 
for  maps,  telegraphs,  etc.,  $244,000.  The  Indian  Office  costs, 
for  salaries,  $30,000,  and  for  incidentals,  $5,000.  The  Pension 
Office  costs  the  extraordinary  sum  of  $344,000,  besides  addi- 
tional clerks  to  the  amount  of  $92,000.  This  office  also  uses 
$75,000  for  stationery,  engraving,  printing,  &c.  The  Patent 
Office  costs,  for  salaries  $319,000,  besides,  for  extra  clerks  and 
laborers,  $147,000.  The  stationery,  &c.,  here  cost  $90,000, 
and  for  photo-lithographing,  $40,000.   The  Bureau  of  Education, 


CURIOSITIES   OF  THE   BUREAUX.  191 

an  excrescence  upon  the  Government,  of  no  earthly  account 
except  as  an  auxiliary  to  take  common-schools  from  the  States 
and  counties  where  they  belong,  and  run  them  nationally, — 
this  costs  127,000. 

Now  we  come  to  the  Surveyor-GeneraFs  office :  In  Minnesota, 
it  costs  $6,300,  and  in  Kansas  $2,000  ;  in  California  $14,000. 
and  in  most  of  the  other  States  about  $30,000.  The  interest- 
ing Department  of  Agriculture,  whose  ornament — the  bleached 
Capron—  has  been  imported  into  Japan  as  a  curiosity,  costs. 
for  salaries  alone,  $75,000,  for  statistics  and  fodder  for  the  an- 
nual report,  $15,000,  to  scatter  seeds  around  and  put  them  in 
bags,  $45,000.  These  seeds  make  Yice-Presidents  and  Senators 
when  properly  distributed.  The  Experimental  Garden  of  the 
Agricultural  Department  costs  $10,000,  the  stationery  and  the 
books  on  bugs,  $23,000  ;  besides,  there  is  a  gorgeous  report  on 
the  education  of  oysters,  and  the  intellectual  needs  of  pump- 
kins, for  which  a  monster  appropriation  has  to  be  made  annu- 
ally. 

The  salaries  of  the  Post-Office  Department  in  Washington 
City  alone  cost  above  $400,000,  and  the  building  demands  for 
stationery,  besides,  $50,000.  In  this  particular  bill,  Post- 
masters are  not  considered. 

The  War  Department  takes  $47,000  for  salaries  ;  $46,000 
are  appropriated  for  examinations,  and  for  copying  from  the 
Rebel  archives,  the  Adjutant-General  demands  $100,000  per 
annum  ;  the  Quartermaster-General,  $18,000  ;  the  Postmaster- 
General,  $70,000  ;  the  Commissary-General,  $42,000 ;  the 
Surgeon-General,  $25,000 ;  the  Chief  Engineer,  $29,000  ;  the 
Chief  of  Ordinance,  $25,000  ;  the  office  of  Military  Justice, 
$5,000  ;  the  Signal  Office,  $2,800 ;  and  the  Inspecto'r-Gcneral, 
$1,600.  These  salaries  are  merely  for  clerks  and  stationery 
in  the  Washington  Offices,  and  do  not  apply  to  salaries 
throughout  the  military  service.  The  War  Department,  be- 
sides, requires  for  rents  and  repairs,  $44^000. 


192  THE    JUDICIARY. 

To  run  the  central  office  of  the  Navy  Department,  where 
Secretary  Robeson  sits  at  the  table  with  an  oar  in  his  hand, 
crying  "  Heave  ho  !"  the  clerics  get  $36,000,  and  billet-doux 
are  written  to  the  extent  of  $5,000.  Then  the  Bureaux  have 
their  particular  clerks.  The  Yards  and  Docks  Bureau  requires 
$16,000  ;  that  of  Equipment,  $12,000  ;  of  Navigation,  $6,000  ; 
of  Ordnance,  $10,000  ;  of  Construction  and  Repair,  $113,000  ; 
of  Steam  Engineering,  $8,000  ;  of  Provisions  and  Clothing, 
$15,000  ;  of  Medicine,  $5,000,  &c. 

THE   JUDICIARY. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  Judicial  part  of  our  Government, — 
a  third  and  co-ordinate  part  of  the  whole  ;  and  what  does  it 
cost  ?  To  pay  the  whole  Bench  demands  $72,000  a  year,  ex- 
clusive of  nine  Circuit  Judges,  who  cost  $54,000  altogether. 
To  pay  the  District  Judges,  and  some  retired  Judges,  costs 
$193,000,  and  the  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia  costs 
$20,000.  The  total  salaries  of  all  the  District  Attorneys  of  the 
United  States  is  put  down  at  $19,000,  and  of  the  Marshals 
also,  $19,000.  The  Marshals  and  Attorneys  get  fees  besides. 
The  District  Attorneys  get  2  1-2  per  cent,  on  all  the  money 
they  recover  for  the  country,  and  the  District  Attorney's  office 
in  New  York  City  is  said  to^  bo  worth  $30,000  a  year.  The 
Court  of  Claims,  at  Washington  costs  about  $35,000,  and 
$400,000  is  appropriated  to  pay  its  judgments.  This  extraor- 
dinary clause — the  only  piece  of  light  reading  in  the  bill — is 
put  at  the  end  of  the  Court  of  Claims  appropriation  : 

Provided,  That  no  part  of  this  $400,000  shall  be  paid  in 
satisfaction  of  any  judgment  rendered  in  favor  of  George  Chor- 
penning,  growing  out  of  any  claim  for  carrying  the  mail. 

The  Department  of  Justice  requires  $73,000.  The  Solicitor- 
General  gets  $7,500,  which  is  only  $500  less  than  the  Attor- 
ney-General. Each  of  the  Assistant  Attorneys-General  gets 
$5,000,  and  the  Solicitor  of  Internal  Revenue  $5,000.  The 
Solicitor  of  the  Treasury  costs,  for  himself  and  clerks,  $22,000  ; 


CURIOSITIES   OF   THE   BUREAUX.  193 

three  Commissioners  for  codifying  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  cost  118,000  ;  the  British  Claim  Commission,  meeting 
in  Washington  city  at  present,  costs  $49,000. 

The  above,  perhaps,  dull  reading,  is  an  analysis  of  one  of 
the  large  appropriation  bills,  and  will  give  you  some  idea  of 
what  it  costs  merely  for  clerks,  stationery,  office  service,  and 
printing  in  the  departments  at  Washington.  Since  that  day 
back  pay  has  been  voted  by  Congress,  and  all  the  larger  sala- 
ries increased. 

The  greatest  office  of  the  Government,  outside  of  Washing- 
ton, is  the  New  fork  Custom  House. 

Consider  that  it  employs  nearly  one-tenth  as  many  men  as 
constitute  the  regular  army  of  the  United  States  !  That  it  is 
the  toll-gateway  for  the  greater  part  of  all  the  foreign  cargoes 
which  are  poured  amongst  our  forty  millions  of  people  !  That 
it  is  not  only  the  most  fruitful  source  of  revenue  which  we 
possess,  but  also  the  most  fruitful  source  of  corruption  !  Ten 
per  cent,  a  head,  levied  upon  its  employees, — as  was  done 
every  year  down  to  the  present, — will  make  a  purse  sufficient 
to  carry  an  election  in  the  largest  community  in  the  Union. 
Senator  Morton,  of  Indiana,  if  I  am  properly  informed,  had  no 
trouble  in  the  world  to  get  115,000  from  this  hive  ot  pension- 
ers to  help  him  lose  the  State  of  Indiana  at  an  election  in 
1870.  Out  of  this  great  den  of  revenue  comes  the  cash  which 
is  mysteriously  dispensed  amongst  us  in  the  critical  periods  of 
partisan  appeal.  This  Custom  House  has  always  been  wielded 
for  party  purposes,  and  it  is  said  never  to  have  had  an  efficient 
chief.  Its  director  is  called  the  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New 
York.  He  nominally  receives  $6,400  a  year,  his  Assistant 
Collector  $5,000,  his  Auditor  $7,000,  and  his  Cashier  $5,000. 
His  seven  deputies  receive  $3,000  a  piece.  Under  him  are  em- 
ployed an  immense  number  of  persons,  as  for  example,  247  in- 
.spectors  of  one  particular  class,  whose  aggregate  wages  are 
$380,000  ;  120  night  watchmen,  getting  altogether  about 
$130,000  ;  100  store-keepers,  wlio  cost  him,  in  gross, 
$150,000  ;  60  examiners,  and  several  hundred  clerks.  Few 
9 


194         THE  EXPENSE  OP  THE  CUSTOM  HOUSE 

of  the  salaries  fall  as  low  as  $600,  and  the  average  salary- 
passes  $1,000.  Mr.  Allison,  the  Register  of  the  Treasury, 
alleges,  in  his  newest  report,  that  one  set  of  items  show  a  bill 
of  expenditures  at  the  New  York  Custom  House  of  nearly 
$1,800,000.  Mr.  Boutwell  sets  down  the  revenue  derived  from 
all  the  customs  in  the  year  1870,  at  $195,000,000,  which  was 
ten  millions  more  than  the  gross  receipts  of  the  internal  reve- 
nue system.  If  we  go  back  to  the  year  1869,  we  shall  be  able 
to  see  more  distinctly  what  a  great  part  the  New  York  Custom 
House  plays  in  our  finance  and  our  politics.  According  to  the 
statistics  of  that  year,  the  value  of  all  goods  now  imported  into 
the  United  States  is  $414,000,000  per  annum.  Only  $42,000,- 
000  worth  are  entered  free,  and  $160,000,000  are  sent  to 
bonded  warehouses  before  their  duties  are  paid.  The  gross 
custom  duties  received  on  this  $414,000,000  reach  the  heavy 
figure  of  $180,000,000,  or  nearly  40  per  cent,  of  the  value.  The 
New  York  port  enters  $270,000,000  of  goods  per  annum  pay- 
ing duty,  and  $27,000,000  of  goods  duty  free.  Of  the  dutiable 
goods,  $120,000,000  worth  go  to  New  York  bonded  warehouses, 
or  three-fourths  of  the  warehoused  goods  in  the  country.  Last 
year  there  entered  the  port  of  New  York,  subject  to  the  Custom 
Plouse  restrictions,  5,218  vessels,  with  a  tonnage  of  3,200,000 
tons,  and  with  crews  amounting  to  110,000  men.  This  is 
equal,  therefore,  to  the  head-quarters  of  one  of  the  largest 
navies  in  the  earth. 

Speaking  of  navies  suggests  the  great  old  Marine  Barrack 
of  Washington  city,  which  few  visitors  ever  enter. 

The  marines  are  under  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  and  they  may  be  described  as  the  military  of  the  ships. 
They  stand  guard  at  the  gangways,  magazine,  forecastle,  navy 
yards,  and  navy  arsenals  ;  are  the  boarding  party  in  the  ulti- 
mate collision  of  vessels,  and  in  time  of  action  they  must  fight 
the  after-division  of  guns.  The  service,  although  a  useful  one, 
is  generally  considered  a  fancy  one,  and  it  is  in  request.  Can- 
didates are  examined  for  it  in  our  day,  but  there  are  no  Marine 
cadetships  at  West  Point,  and  to  be  between  the  years  of  20 


•CURIOSITIES  OP  THE  BUREAUX.  195 

and  25,  to  have  a  fair  collegiate  education  and  physical 
strength,  are  sufficient  endowments.  Appointees  are  put  under 
drill,  and  one  of  the  marine  officers  is  now  preparing  a  book 
upon  the  manipulation  of  the  corps. 

There  are  in  all  ninety-two  officers  of  the  Marine  Corps, 
counting  the  general  staff;  the  file  numbers  2,500  men. 
Privates,  who  formerly  received  $16  a  month,  now  get  $13 
only,  and  there  is  much  grumbling  over  the  reduction,  and 
desertions  are  more  frequent.  A  corporal  only  receives  the  pay 
of  a  private.  Two  promotions  from  the  rank  are  recorded. 
The  uniform  of  the  corps  is  dark  blue  jacket  and  light  blue 
^-vowsers,  with  white  pipe-clay  cross-belts,  and,  for  dress,  the 
-♦epical  short  hat,  with  red  fringe  pompon.  Sailors  are  sel- 
dom enlisted  in  the  corps  ;  they  will  not  "  set  up  "  well,  have 
a  swagger  incompatible  with  the  noble  stiffiiess  of  a  true 
marine,  and  are  averse  to  the  service  besides.  The  old  black 
liigh  stock  forced  upon  the  marines,  to  give  them  the  quality 
of  ramrodness,  is  now  abandoned. 

Promotion  to  the  head  of  the  Marine  Corps  is  made  by 
selection,  and  not  by  seniority. 

A  cosy  part  of  the  Navy  Department  is  the  Judge  Advocate's 
room.  Around  it  are  a  series  of  those  old-fashioned  naval 
pictures  which  one  finds  scattered  through  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment, executed  in  abundant  blue,  framed  in  dingy  gilt,  for- 
gotten as  to  their  authors,  and  as  to  their  date  Immemorial. 
Doubtless  they  were  the  work  of  some  old  clerk,  whose  amateur, 
self-learned  skill  with  the  pencil  got  him  relief  from  fuller 
duties ;  perhaps  the  work  of  some  old  salt,  officer  or  seaman, 
who  so  whiled  away  his  lazy  hours  while  out  of  commission ; 
possibly  wrought  by  some  decayed  or  embryo  artist  whom  a 
past  secretary  has  salaried  to  illustrate  our  naval  career.  All 
through  the  department,  these  unclaimed,  unhonored  canvasses 
lie,  with  portraits  of  distinguished  "  salts  "  set  between ;  here 
Bainbridge,  there  McDonough,  yonder  Hull.  It  is  not  improb- 
able that  many  of  them  are  ascribed  excellent  for  technical 
merits,  which  strike  a  sailor  more  than  art ;  but  there  they 


196  THE  AGRICULTURAL  DEPARTMENT. 

are,  forgotten  as  their  episodes,  useless  to  the  world  of  action 
as  are  the  old  swords,  scimeters,  hari-karis,  forbidden  to  our 
officials,  which  repose  in  the  museum  of  the  Patent  Office. 

"  Judge  Bolles,"  said  I,  "  does  anybody  know  what  these 
old  ship-scenes  represent  ?  '* 

"  These  in  my  room,"  said  the  Judge,  from  the  depths  of 
his  leather-cushioned  office-chair,  "  tell  the  whole  story  of  the 
fight  between  the  Guerriere  and  the  Constitution.  Here  they 
are  sailing  for  the  action.  Yonder  they  haul  to,  and  the 
Guerriere  opens  at  long  distance.  In  the  third  picture,  the 
Constitution  being  within  pistol  shot,  delivered  her  first  ter- 
rible broadside.  In  the  next  the  Guerriere  strikes.  The  last 
picture  represents  the  hulk  of  the  Guerriere,  and  the  Constitu- 
tion turns  on  her  heel,-  sailing  away  in  victory. 

Beside  the  Smithsonian  Institute  upon  this  flat,  and  on  the 
site  of  what  has  been  called  the  "  Experimental  Government 
Farm,"  a  fine  new  building  has  arisen,  170  feet  long  by  about 
60  feet  deep,  made  of  pressed  brick,  with  brown-stone  dress- 
ings, built  in  the  modern  French  style,  with  steep  slate  roof 
and  gilt  balustrades  and  galleries.  This  building  is  to  be 
occupied  within  a  month,  and  the  Agricultural  Department 
carried  out  of  the  vaults  of  the  Patent  Office ;  then  tlie  thirty- 
five  acres  allotted  to  the  new  department  will  be  supplied  with 
an  orchard-house,  an  orangery,  a  cold  grapery,  and  houses  for 
medicinal  and  textile  plants.  The  building  is  one  of  the 
simplest  and  purest,  in  a  modern  sense,  in  Washington,  the 
design  of  a  Baltimore  architect.  It  cost  8100,000.  The 
Agricultural  Department  in  toto  costs  about  $150,000  a  year, 
of  which  nearly  one-sixth  goes  to  tlie"  distribution  of  seeds.  In , 
the  new  building  the  happiest  being  will  be  our  enthusiast,; 
Townsend  Glover,  the  naturalist,  him  to  whom  your  farmers 
apply  for  a  knowledge  of  what  birds  eat  the  pippin  apples,  and 
what  worm  gets  into  the  beet-root.  Glover  is  a  Brazilian  by 
the  accident  of  birth,  a  Yorkshire  Englishman  by  parentage,  a 
German  by  education,  American  by  adoption  and  enthusiasm, 
lie  is  a  singular-looking  man,  short,  thick,  near-sighted,  pecu- 


CURIOSITIES   OF   THE   BUREAUX.  197 

liar,  an  Admirable  Crichton  in  the  practical  arts.  Agriculture 
has  been  his  fanaticism  for  forty  years.  He  paints,  models  in 
plaster,  engraves,  composes,  analyzes,  and  invents  with  about 
equal  facility.  His  passion  is  to  be  the  founder  of  an  index 
museum  to  all  the  products  of  the  American  Continent,  from 
cotton  to  coal  oil,  from  joitch  pine  to  wine.  Heretofore  he  has 
had  only  two  little  rooms  in  the  dingy  basement  of  the  Patent 
Office ;  hereafter  lie  is  to  have  a  handsome  museum-room  in 
the  new  building,  103  by  52  feet,  and  27  feet  high.  His 
objects,  already  largely  perfected,  are  to  methodize,  by  models 
and  specimens,  the  natural  history,  diseases,  parasites  and 
remedies  of  every  individual  product  in  America.  For  example : 
A  man  wants  to  move  to  Nevada.  What  are  the  products  of 
Nevada  ?  Glover  has  a  series  of  cases  devoted  to  that  State, 
models  of  all  its  fruits,  berries,  prepared  specimens  of  its  birds, 
illustrations  of  its  cereals,  Jlors,  grasses,  trees.  A  small 
pamphlet  conveys  the  same  information ;  the  man  knows  what 
to  expect  of  Nevada.  A  man  forwards  a  blue  bird  ;  is  it  toler- 
able or  destructive,  to  be  encouraged  or  banned?  Glover 
forwards  the  names  of  fruits,  etc.,  which  the  blue  bird  eats. 
He  will  show  you,  in  living,  working  condition,  the  whole  life- 
time of  a  cocoon  :  the  processes  of  Sea  Island  cotton,  from  the 
pod  to  the  manufacture  ;  the  economical  history  of  the  common 
goat ;  the  processes  of  hemp  from  the  field  to  the  hangman. 
Every  mail  brings  to  him  a  hawk,  a  strange  species  of  fish,  a 
blasted  potato,  a  peculiar  grass,  which  poisons  the  cow.  He 
is  the  most  dogged  naturalist  in  the  world,  probably  ;  a  wrestler 
with  the  continent.  He  is  a  bachelor,  married  to  his  pursuit, 
one  of  those  odd  beings  hidden  away  in  the  recesses  of 
government,  whose  work  is  in  itself  its  own  fame  and  fortune. 

A  curious  subject,  to  the  inquisitive  reader,  was  debated 
before  Congress  in  1871.  It  was  the  revision  of  the  laws  per- 
taining to  the  mint  and  coinage  of  the  United  States. 

This  measure  originated  with  a  quiet  and  indefatigable  bach- 
elor official  of  the  Treasury  Department.  Mr.  John  J.  Knox, 
the  Deputy  Comptroller  of  the  Currency.     He  has  spent  almost 


198  THE   UNITED   STATES  MINT   AND   COINAGE. 

his  whole  life  in  the  atmosphere  of  banks,  and,  receiving  a  sal- 
ary of  only  $2,500  in  a  city  where  it  costs  $3,500  to  live,  he 
has  made  use  of  all  his  leisure  time  to  put  himself  into  asso- 
ciation with  the  former,  as  well  as  the  present,  practical  men 
of  the  mints  of  the  United  States. 

You  know  what  the  United  States  Mint  is — an  institution 
ordained  by  Congress  in  1792,  while  the  Capital  of  the  United 
States  was  yet  at  Philadelphia.  The  fine  body  of  organizing 
men  who  were  setting  the  nation  right  at  that  time,  resolved 
upon  giving  their  image  and  superscription  to  the  world  upon 
their  hard  money.  The  first  Director  of  the  Mint  was  the 
renowned  David  Rittenhouse,  astronomer  and  mechanic,  who 
made  watches,  orreries,  telescopes,  and  mathematical  instru- 
ments, and  who  went  heartily  to  work  in  the  new  institution, 
devising  machinery,  organizing  a  clerical  force,  and  otherwise 
establishing  so  handsome  an  institution,  that,  when  the  Capital 
was  removed  to  Washington,  the  mint  was  permitted  to  remain 
in  the  city  of  the  Quakers.  Rittenhouse  was  succeeded  by 
such  strong  men  as  De  Saussure,  Boudinot,  and  the  two  Doctors 
Patterson,  father  and  son.  These  kept  the  mint  up  to  a  good 
standard  of  efficiency,  but  much  of  its  machinery  remains  mod- 
eled upon  the  same  pattern  as  the  early  days.  Tliis  mint  is  a 
staid,  unattractive  building,  on  Chestnut  street,  and  it  enjoyed 
the  remarkable  distinction  of  keeping  a  permanent  set  of  officers 
down  to  the  year  1861,  when,  for  the  first  time,  as  we  grieve 
to  say,  the  new  Republican  administration  put  its  hand  upon 
the  Directorship  of  this  most  responsible  -concern,  and  made 
its  management  a  part  of  the  political  patronage  which  curses 
the  country. 

From  that  mint,  as  the  necessities  of  the  -country  demanded 
— or  rather  the  covetousncss  of  localities — branch  mints  sprang 
up  in  Georgia,  North  CaroHna,  and  Alabama,  and  an  assay 
office  was  established  at  New  York  city.  After  the  discovery 
of  gold  on  the  Pacific  coast,  a  more  needful  mint  was  given  to 
San  Francisco,  where  really  the  larger  part  of  the  coinage  of 
the  country  is  now  done.     After  a  time  the  greed  of  localities, 


CURIOSITIES   OF  THE  BUREAUX.  199 

and  tlie  growth  of  jobbery,  gave  a  mint  to  Carson  City,  Nevada ; 
one  to  Dallas  City,  Oregon  ;  another  to  Denver,  Colorado  ;  and, 
finally,  an  extra  assay  office  to  Boise  City,  Idaho.  Thus  the 
business  of  coining  money,  instead  of  being  confined  to  one 
establishment,  as  in  almost  every  other  government,  has  got  to 
be  very  nearly  a  State  matter  in  the  United  States. 

According  to  the  report  of  Architect  Mullet,  we  have  twelve 
pieces  of  Mint  and  assay  property,  which,  altogether,  have 
cost,  or  will  cost,  between  four  million  and  five  millions  of 
dollars.  The  New  Orleans  Mint,  which  has  cost  $620,000,  is 
a  dead  loss,  and  of  no  use  whatever.  The  Carson  City  Mint, 
which  was  put  up  to  tickle  the  Nevada  silver  mining  interests, 
cost  nearly  $300,000.  The  Mint  at  Charlotte,  North  Carolhia, 
cost  upward  of  $100,000,  and  at  Dahlonega,  Georgia,  $70,000. 
The  old  California  Mint  cost  $300,000,  and  the  new  mint  will 
cost  more  than  $2,000,000.  The  assay  office  at  New  York 
cost  upward  of  $700,000.  Mr.  Mullett'.s  Mint  at  San  Francis- 
co appears  to  be  architecturally  an  adaptation  of  the  Patent 
Office  at  Washington,  with  the  front  of  the  mint  at  Philadelphia 
appended,  and  there  are  two  large  smoke  chimneys  in  the 
centre,  which  give  the  whole  thing  the  appearance  of  a  steam- 
boat ready  to  go  right  off  through  the  Golden  Gate.  The  edifice 
is  to  be  221  by  164  feet  in  dimensions. 

As  the  mint  edifices  have  been  scattered,  so  have  the  regula- 
tions about  the  coinage  fallen  behind  the  well-organized  system 
of  other  nations,  and  the  final  capture  of  the  mint  by  the 
politicians  has  proved  to  be  a  serious  matter.  The  Philadel- 
phia Mint  has  continued  to  retain  a  traditional  supremacy,  its 
chief  officer  being  "the  Director"  in  name  of  the  whole  mint 
system  of  the  country,  while  the  executive  officers  at  the  places 
are  called  Superintendents  merely.  Yet  the  mint  at  Philadel- 
phia has  latterly  come  to  be,  in  great  part,  a  mill  for  making 
nickel  pennies,  and  engraving  medals  from  the  "  Great  Father" 
to  his  Indian  braves,  and  other  Generals.  In  1873  the  bill 
just  referred  to,  passed,  and  hereafter  the  Commissioner  of  the 
Mint  will  reside  in  Washington  city  at  the  Treasury  building. 

Jy  CSV    TTTK  ^ 

I  UlSriVERSTTY  J 


200  THE   DETECTIVE   SYSTEM. 

Another  quaint  bureau  of  the  Treasury  Department  is  the 
Petectives*,  headed  by  Colonel  Whitely. 

The  position  which  Colonel  Whitely  maintains  is  more  impor- 
tant than  any  secret  police  agent  holds  in  the  Union.  He  is 
charged  with  all  the  manifold  and  intricate  offences  against  the 
currency  and  the  Treasury,  including  counterfeiting,  defalcation, 
whiskey,  and  tobacco  frauds,  the  use  of  false  stamps,  etc.  His 
headquarters  are  in  Washington,  and  his  main  branch  office 
is  on  Bleecker  street,  New  York.  His  force  is  distributed 
through  the  Union,  and  the  area  of  his  personal  superinten- 
dence is  circumscribed  only  by  our  national  boundaries. 

He  is  a  tall,  wiry,  rather  debilitated-looking  young  man,  with 
a  long,  pale,  youthful  face,  light  eyes,  and  dark  hair,  a  shy 
manner,  without  any  worldliness  in  it,  and  a  sober,  modest, 
nearly  clerical,  black  dress.  He  neither  drinks  nor  smokes, 
and  is  as  much  of  a  Puritan  as  Mr.  Boutwell.  Whitely  has 
been  very  successful  and  systematic  in  his  operations,  and  he 
has  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  civilization  of  professional  thieves, 
their  jargon  and  methods,  and  their  haunts  and  associates. 
With  some  youthful  confidence  and  self-esteem,  he  is  still 
thoughtful,  persevering,  and  adroit,  and,  armed  with  the  enor- 
mous moral  and  material  power  of  the  Federal  State,  and  its 
great  system  of  marshals  and  attorneys,  he  is  not  subject  to 
the  restraints  of  cross-jurisdiction  and  State  laws,  which  im- 
pede the  pursuit  and  capture  of  local  criminals.  He  occupies 
the  whole  field,  and  is  free  from  the  jealous  annoyances  of 
police  rivalry. 

If  one  could  penetrate  the  Treasury  building,  and  see  the 
strange  and  motley  character  of  the  lesser  clerks,  he  would 
find  meat  for  wonder.  In  it,  filling  weary  benches,  are  ex- 
Governors,  ex-Congressmen,  soldiers  of  rank,  the  sisters  of 
generals  like  Richardson,  decayed  clergymen  by  the  score,  some 
authors,  many  hon  vivants,  and,  they  do  say,  young  girls  with 
dangerous  attractions  for  public  atmospheres  or  public  individ- 
uals. The  population  of  the  Treasury  building  is  that  of  a 
good-sized  town,  between  three  and  five  thousand.     It  is,  and 


CURIOSITIES   OF   THE   BUREAUX. 


201 


will  be  till  war  comes  again,  the  great  position  of  public  life, 
no  sinecure,  demanding  profound  statesmanship  at  its  head. 
The  destinies  of  the  people  lie  bound  up  in  it.  It  can  over- 
balance all  private  sagacity  if  it  be  weakly  administered,  and 
if  corruptly  or  partisanly,  it  will  be  our  debaucher  or  tyrant. 

Next  to  the  Capitol  itself,  the  spot  most  consecrated  to  our 
marvels  here  is  the  old  theater  where  Mr.  Lincoln  was  mur- 
dered. The  rash  design,  ascribed  to  Stanton,  of  leveling  it  to 
the  ground,  has  happily  not  been  approved,  and  in  essentials  of 
situation  and  exterior  it  is  the  same  object.  But  all  around  it 
the  zeal  of  housebuilding  is  at  work  to  make  the  spot  unrecogni- 
zable to  the  half-buried  ghost  of  Booth.  The  alley  of  his  bad 
escape  is  there  and  also  the  stable  where  he  hid  his  nag,  but 

the  open  areas  and  naked  lots 
which  lay  around  the  old  thea- 
tre and  the  hulks  of  dwellings 
are  filled  with  brick  walls  and 
plaster-beds.  A  new  Masonic 
temple  faces  the  neck  of  the 
alley  ;  the  theatre  itself  is  pre- 
served only  in  its  bare  walls 
and  these  are  freshly  rough- 
casted, the  doors  and  windows 
changed ;  the  boxes  and  gaU 
leries  are  torn  out.  Strong 
floors  girded  of  iron  and 
vaulted  with  brick  replace  at 
different  heights  the  open  canopy  of  the  theatre,  and  iron  stair- 
ways climb  from  floor  to  floor,  guarded  on  every  platform  by 
one-armed  soldiers  standing  to  their  crutches.  The  murder  of 
the  President  still  tenants  the  building  like  some  lost  trace  of 
a  skeleton  hid  away,  or  a  spectre  vaguely  seen,  but  for  the  rest 
it  is  an  association  merely,  and  every  day  the  incident  grows 
less  vivid  and  the  narrative  of  it  more  wayward.  But  added 
to  the  martyrdom  of  the  father  of  the  people,  the  contests  of 
tlio  building  are  now  of  the  aggregate  reminder  of  the  bruises, 


ford's  theatre. 


202  THE  ARMY   MEDICAL   MUSEUM. 

wounds,  and  agonies  of  the  entire  struggle  for  the  Union.  It 
is  the  Army  Medical  Museum,  the  depository  of  the  names  and 
casualties  ot  every  stricken  soldier  and  the  perpetual  min- 
iature of  that  vast  field  of  war  whose  campaigns  of  beneficence 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  its  heroes,  and  death  and  mercy 
went  hand  in  hand. 

Here  are  16,000  volumes  of  hospital  registers,  47,000  burial 
records,  250,000  names  of  white  and  20,000  names  of  colored 
soldiers  who  died  in  the  hospitals.  Here  are  the  names  and 
cases  of  210,027  men  besides,  discharged  from  the  army  dis- 
abled. Here  are  names  and  statements  of  133,957  wounded 
men  brought  to  the  hospital,  and  the  particulars  of  28,438 
operations  performed  with  the  knife.  In  one  year — so  method- 
ized and  perfect  are  the  rolls  and  registers  collected  in  this 
fire-proof  building — 49,212  cases  of  men,  widows  and  orphans 
demanding  pensions  have  been  settled  in  this  edifice.  If  you 
look  through  the  lower  floors  you  will  see  a  hundred  clerks 
searching  out  these  histories,  cataloguing  them,  classifying 
them,  bringing  the  history  of  the  private  soldier  down  to  the 
reach  of  the  most  peremptory  curiosity,  and  assisting  "  to  heal 
the  broken-hearted  and  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised." 

It  is  this  museum  which  is  at  once  the  saddest  memorial  of 
the  common  soldier  and  the  noblest  monument  to  the  army 
surgeon.  It  contains  a  complete  history  of  the  surgery  of  the 
war,  illustrated  by  casts,  models,  photographs,  engravings,  and 
preparations.  There  are  here  nine  hundred  medical  patholog- 
ical preparations,  and  two  thousand  eight  hundred  microscopi- 
cal preparations.  There  is  no  similar  army  medical  collection 
in  the  world,  and  from  Baron  Larrey  down  to  Neleton  and 
Joubert  the  published  reports  of  this  collection  have  delighted 
and  surprised  the  savans  of  the  world.  Scarcely  a  leading 
surgeon  in  Europe  but  has  written  praises  and  sent  them  here. 

Let  us  see  what  this  museum  has  to  show  us.  It  is  a  long, 
cool  room,  the  whole  length  of  the  theatre.  Show-cases  extend 
lengthwise  down  it.  Models  of  hospitals  and  skeletons  of  war- 
horses  stand  at  top  and  bottom.     The  yellow  standard  of  the 


CURIOSITIES   OF   THE   BUREAUX.  203 

hospital  planted  with  the  blue  colors  of  the  regiment  and  the 
tricolor  of  the  natioi>  is  fixed  in  midground.  Two  splendid 
human  skeletons,  at  full  length,  guard,  the  head  of  the  room. 
The  walls  are  covered  with  large  photographs,  some  of  them 
two  yards  square,  of  the  great  hospitals  of  the  war,  those  superb 
edifices  which  are  now  nearly  all  broken  up.  Near  by  are  pho- 
tographs of  the  great  army  surgeons  of  all  nations,  Larrey,  De 
Genette,  O'Meara,  and  others  of  our  own  service.  A  table  is 
full  of  books  of  photographs  of  surgical  operations,  where, 
spent,  and  unshaven,  the  camera  has  been  turned  upon  the 
amputated  man's  freshly  severed  stump  and  made  his  sufferings 
vivid  forever.  So  are  the  healed  and  scarcely  less  cruelly  sug- 
gestive wounds  photographed  with  views  of  men  in  the  various 
transitions  between  the  cutting  of  the  bullet  and  the  final  con- 
valescence. Photographs  of  amputating  tables  all  prepared  and 
the  victim  stretched  out  insensible  almost  make  you  smell  the 
fmnes  of  chloroform  on  the  doctor's  bloody  sponge.  Stereo- 
scopes are  set  near  by,  wherein  you  may  examine  the  field  of 
battle  with  the  corpses  yet  unburied  and  see  the  bleached  bones 
of  the  Wilderness  as  the  camera  discovered  them  to  make  their 
profanation  eternal.  So  may  you  see  the  decks  of  battle-ships, 
where  they  are  carrying  the  splintered  and  shot-riven  below, 
and  the  cockpits  where  they  seek  to  save  the  remainder  of  the 
carcass. 

Continuing  on  we  come  to  great  cases  of  artificial  limbs, 
bandages,  slings,  lint,  and  crutches.  Some  of  these  latter  arc 
actual  crutches  made  of  forked  boughs,  whereon  wounded  men 
hobbled  unassisted  to  camp.  After  this  are  models  of  every 
sort  of  ambulance,  stretcher,  dissecthig  table,  hospital  bed,  and 
the  interiors  of  miniature  hospitals,  clean  and  sweet-scented  as 
their  originals. 

Then  follows  a  long  array  of  human  skulls,  some  perforated 
by  bullets,  some  staven  in  by  cannon-balls,  some  fractured  by 
blows  from  sabres,  some  eaten  with  syphilis.  Afterward  fol- 
lows the  vast  collection  of  preparations,  dissected  parts  of  men 
corrupt  with  decompositions,  abnormal  by  neglect  or  the  results 


204  THE   CONGRESSIONAL  LIBRARY. 

of  wounds,  or  swollen  or  attenuated  with  camp  diseases  and 
unwholesome  food.  Following  these  by  hundreds  are  models  in 
plaster  or  wax,  of  preparations  too  perishable  to  keep.  Then 
come  collections  ol  parasites,  deposits,  impassable  articles  of 
food  tound  in  the  liver  and  stomachs  of  the  dead,  strange  in- 
stances which  fell  from  drinking  filthy  water,  and  tokens  of 
monstrous  disease  or  indigestion  beyond  the  reach  of  the  dis- 
secting knife.  Bones  in  catacombs  come  after,  splintered,  bro- 
ken, ill-set,  amputated  away  from  the  man — whole  jaws,  noses, 
eyes,  ears,  shoulder  blades,  the  leg  from  the  hip-joint  to  the  toe. 
Here  is  that  cartilage  of  Wilkes  Booth,  broken  by  the  ball  of 
Boston  Corbett.  Here  is  a  view  ot  Sickle's  leg,  amputated  on 
the  field  of  Gettysburg!!.  Next  are  valuable  cases  of  most 
minute  microscopic  preparations,  a  library  of  books,  reports, 
experiments,  suggestions  made  by  the  medical  wisdom  of  the 
doctors  of  the  war,  and  by  this  time  the  eye,  running  along  so 
much  that  thrills  it,  wearies  of  even  the  fascinations  of  death 
and  refuses  to  explore  these  painful  wonders  further. 

In  this  museum,  the  war  will  live  as  long  as  its  moral  and 
political  influence.  This  collection  is  worthier  than  the  proud- 
est victory  won  even  for  freedom.  It  is  the  infiltrating  genius 
of  mercy,  unable  to  prevent  the  blow  but  claiming  the  victim 
when  he  is  stricken.  And  not  less  extraordinary  than  this 
ocular  demonstration  are  the  figures  deduced  from  the  rolls  of 
the  surgeons,  shedding  light  upon  the  natural  history  of  man 
at  large. 

From  skulls  to  books  is  an  easy  step. 

Right  off  the  Rotunda,  that  amphitheatre  of  politics,  tlie 
Congressional  library  lies,  its  windows  facing  the  pit  of  tlie 
city  of  Washington.  Opposite  the  main  door,  behind  a  high 
table,  piled  full  of  books,  sits,  or  stands  the  Librarian — a  dark- 
skinned,  black-haired  man,  perpetually  at  work  with  a  pen, 
cataloguing,  or,  with  a  catalogue,  directing ;  and  his  self-im- 
posed labors  are  probably  greater  than  his  duties.  He  was 
never  known  to  be  in  doubt  about  any  volume,  and  probably 
never  known  to  waste  any  time  in  mere  book  gossip.     His 


CENTRAL    ROOM,    CONGRESSIONAL    LIBRARY, 
CAPITOL,    WASHINGTON. 


CURIOSITIES   OP  THE   BUREAUX.  205 

place  is  one  for  which  he  has  personal  ambition,  and  he  indi- 
cated his  choice  beforehand  by  minute  and  extensive  convers- 
ance with  bibliography.  His  nights  afe  the  Government's,  like 
his  days ;  for  he  has  resolved,  of  his  own  will  and  motive,  to 
catalogue  this  large  library  by  subjects  and  by  authors,  and  not 
merely  to  catalogue  its  books  by  titles,  but  by  contents,  so  that 
when  one  is  interested  in  a  subject,  he  can  be  apprised  even  of 
exceptional  references  to  it. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  the  author  of  the  Government,  as  we 
understand  it,  was  also  the  author  of  the  library,  and  in  the 
first  year  of  this  century  $3,000  was  appropriated  to  buy  books, 
only  2,000  volumes  of  which  were  collected,  when  the  British 
burnt  the  Capitol.  In  1814,  Jefferson  again  appeared  in  the 
guise  of  Phoenix,  and  offered  to  replace  the  perished  library 
with  his  own,  consisting  of  7,500  well-selected  volumes.  The 
usual  hue  and  cry  of  Federal  partisans  was  raised,  but  that 
small  majority  of  common  sense  patriots  which  comes  to  the 
rescue  at  opportune  times  carried  the  measure,  and  nearly 
$24,000  was  appropriated  to  make  the  purchase.  It  was  not 
until  1825  that  the  library  obtained  good  housing  in  the  central 
Capitol,  and  by  small  yearly  appropriations  it  had  grown  to  be 
55,000  books  in  1851,  when  fire  destroyed  three-fourths  of  it, 
sparing  many  of  Jefferson's  books.  Cut  down  to  20,000  vol- 
umes, its  great  days  seemed  to  have  passed.  Congress  cheer- 
fully voted  within  three  years  $157,000  to  build  a  fire-proof 
library  room,  .and  to  buy  new  books,  but  only  70,000  volumes 
had  been  accumulated  up  to  the  period  of  the  war,  when  there 
providentially  appeared  an  old  man  who  had  devoted  sixty 
years  of  his  beautiful  and  dutiful  life  to  saving  from  the  ravages 
of  time  and  waste,  a  library  of  American  history  for  just  such 
an  exigency.  This  was  Peter  Force,  now  an  inhabitant  of  his 
grave  for  nearly  two  years.  He  is,  par  excellence^  the  founder 
of  the  "  New  Library  of  the  United  States.'* 

Peter  Force  was  the  greatest  New  Jerseyman,  and  the  ear- 
liest collector  of  American  books  and  antiquities.  A  printer 
in  New  York ;  a  resident  of  the   Capital  City  half  a  century ; 


206  PETER  FORCE. 

Mayor  of  Washington ;  editor  of  the  American  Historical  doc- 
uments, and  founder  of  the  American  Bibliography,  his  rank 
in  our  literary  civilization  was  more  eminent  than  Sloane's  in 
English.  There  is  nothing  more  interesting  and  peculiar  than 
to  follow  this  grand  and  ardent  old  man  through  the  garrets 
and  attics  of  old  colonial  homes,  from  Maine  to  Mexico,  dis- 
covering in  chests  and  rubbish  heaps,"  the  precious  footprints 
of  our  history,  raising  from  the  brink  of  extinction  some  paper, 
autograph  letter,  or  a  pamphlet  which,  from  its  mouldy  pages 
threw  the  phosphorescent  spark  upon  some  mistaken  fame  or 
injured  cause,  and  kept  for  man  the  memory  of  an  expiring 
episode  to  guide  or  to  beguile  him.  His  venerable  presence 
haunted  the  frequent  auction  sales  of  all  the  towns  and  cities, 
and  his  hand  interposed  between  the  frivolous  plunderer  and 
the  hammer,  to  guard  many  cherished  data  for  the  State. 
He  touched  with  his  wand  many  young  men,  and  they,  like 
him,  went  groping  into  the  garrets  of  the  past  to  add  to  his 
collections,  and  at  last,  from  every  side,  books,  pamphlets,  and 
letters  were  forwarded  to  him  from  gainful  people,  who  put 
upon  his  sinking  shoulders  the  duties  that  elsewhere  are  under- 
taken by  the  State.  He  labored  to  the  end,  this  Noah  of  our 
literature,  bridging  over  the  gap  of  oblivion  with  his  prov- 
idence, and  his  house,  at  Tenth  and  D  streets,  was  a  veritable 
ark,  containing  the  seeds  ot  our  past  species.  Offers  from  all 
sides  were  made  to  him  to  sell,  but  he  relinquished  his  library 
only  to  the  United  States,  and  then  pined  for  its  society,  and 
died  like  the  last  man  of  the  former  generations. 

In  all  his  life,  but  one  great  pain  came  to  Peter  Force.  Sec- 
retary of  State,  Marcy,  refused  to  accept  his  second  series  of 
American  archives,  probably  in  some  pique  of  the  politician's 
spirit,  and  Force  declined  to  explain  or  to  resume.  The  work 
ceased.  It  can  never  be  done  so  well  by  any  survivor.  This 
is  an  episode  of  the  old,  interminable  war  between  power  and 
art — place  and  pride  of  scholarship — fought  over  by  Johnson 
and  Chesterfield,  Chatterton  and  Walpole,  Motley  and  Seward, 
Force  and  Marcy. 


CURIOSITIES   OP  THE   BUREAUX.  207 

Tlie  Congressional  Library  is  about  180  feet  long,  by  34  feet 
wide — a  gallery,  bent  twice,  so  as  to  form  a  hall  and  two 
alcoves,  the  hall  itself  91  feet  long,  and  the  height  of  all  the 
three  uniformly  38  feet.  The  hall  contains  the  Librarian's 
desk  and  a  few  baize  tables ;  one  of  the  wings  or  alcoves  is 
exclusively  for  Congressmen,  the  other  affords  reading  space 
for  perhaps  fifty  people.  Tlie  floor  is  marble ;  the  ceiling  is  of 
decorated  iron,  with  skylights ;  all  the  shelving  is  iron.  The 
arcliitecture  of  the  room  is  pleasing,  and  the  prevailing  tints 
are  cream-color,  bronze,  and  gold. 

Like  Georgetown  College  and  the  Smithsonian  Institute,  the 
Soldiers'  Home  of  Washington  is  a  contribution  from  outside 

parties.  Gen  Winfield  Scott 
extorted  the  money  with 
which  the  land  was  pur- 
chased from  the  city  of  Mex- 
ico on  account  of  the  viola- 
tion of  a  municipal  obliga- 
tion affecting  the  truce.  A 
very  eligible  site  was  chosen 
on  the  high  ridge  of  hills 
about  four  miles  from  the 
city,  and  this  may  be  con- 
soLDiERs'  HOME.  sidcrcd  the   Central    Park 

of  Washington.  A  few  cents  a  month  is  subtracted  from 
the  pay  of  soldiers  to  support  the  institution,  which  has 
been  so  well  managed  that  in  1868  the  fund  was  about  $800,- 
000.  Some  of  the  ex-volunteer  generals  in  Congress,  who  had 
no  very  magnanimous  appreciation  of  the  regular  army,  endea- 
vored to  have  this  fund  divided  amonst  the  loosely  managed 
volunteer  asylums  throughout  the  country.  To  prevent  such 
spoliation,  the  beautiful  estate  of  Harewood,  belonging  to  W. 
W.  Corcoran,  was  purchased  in  1872,  thus  expanding  the 
grounds  to  a  truly  ample  and  noble  park.  About  the  same 
time  a  statue  of  General  Scott,  the  benefactor,  was  ordered 
from  Launt  Thompson  of  New  York,  wliich  work  was    being 


208  THE  soldiers'  home. 

modeled  while  the  great  equestrian  statue  of  General  Scott 
which  the  Government  had  ordered  was  being  cast  in  Philadel- 
phia. This  accounts  for  two  statues  of  a  hero  of  Mexico  at 
the  Capital.  During  the  fierce  times  of  the  war  Mr.  Lincoln 
made  his  summer  home  at  one  of  the  cottages  on  the  lawn  of 
this  institution,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  tradition  and  general  be- 
lief that  one  evening  as  he  rode  out  he  was  shot  at  upon  the 
road,  but  whether  by  assassins  or  mere  highwaymen  was  not 
known.  This  led  to  his  being  accompanied  by  a  small  guard 
at  the  close  of  the  war.  From  the  upper  windows  of  the 
central  tower  of  the  Soldiers'  Home,  a  panorama  can  be  seen 
much  wider  and  more  varied  than  that  from  the  dome  of  the 
Capitol,  including  a  back  view  of  the  Maryland  country  to- 
ward the  Patuxent.  Right  under  the  eye  is  a  very  old  church, 
Rock  Creek,  one  of  the  old  parishes  of  Maryland  before  the 
District  was  surveyed.  This  church  was  erected  in  1719,  re- 
built in  1775,  and  remodeled  as  we  now  see  it,  in  1868.  Strong, 
hoary  oaks  surround  it,  and  the  old  grave-yard  is  full  of  the 
tombs  of  people  who  lived  at  Washington  and  in  the  surround- 
ing country  anterior  to,  and  contemporary  with,  the  founding  of 
the  Federal  town.  A  large  and  neat  soldiers'  cemetery  lies 
between  Rock  Creek  church  and  the  Soldiers'  Home.  In  Sum- 
mer the  drives  in  this  region  are  enchanting,  and  one  of  the 
few  roads  in  the  vicinity  of  Washington  which  is  passable  in 
Winter  and  Spring  for  pleasure  teams  is  that  leading  from 
Silver  Springs  toward  Sandy  Spring.  Sandy  Spring  is  one  of 
the  boarding-house  settlements  for  Washingtonians.  Silver 
Springs  is  the  estate  of  Francis  P.  Blair,  Andrew  Johnson's 
official  editor,  who  is  still  living  in  a  hale  old  age.  Between 
Silver  Springs  and  the  Soldiers'  Home  are  the  villas  of  Alex- 
ander H.  Shepherd,  Mathew  G.  Emery,  and  other  prominent 
citizens  of  Washington. 

We  will  conclude  this  chapter  with  some  sketch  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institute  : 

The  will  of  James  Smithson,  like  that  of  Stephen  Girard, 
Mr.  Rush,  and  many  others,  did  not  express  with  sufficient 


CURIOSITIES    OF    THE    BUREAUX.  209 

directness  or  coherence  what  he  wished  the  United  States  to 
do  with  his  money.  Some  members,  as  John  Randolph,  were 
opposed  to  receiving  it  on  the  ground,  probably  not  wide  of  the 
mark,  that  a  great  nation  was  not  a  distributing  reserA^oir  for 
idosyncratic  philanthropists.  To  add  to  this  Mr.  Smithson 
offended  some  of  the  more  aristocratic  members  by  his  illegiti- 
mate descent.  His  original  name  had  been  James  Lewis 
Macie  ;  his  father  had  been  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  and 
his  mother  the  niece  of  the  Duke  of  Somerset.  He  was  a 
scientific  man  of  much  industry  and  good  professional  acquain- 
tance.    His  death  occurred  at  Geneva,  Italy,  in  1829.     He  is 


SMITHSONIAN   INSTITUTE. 

said  never  to  have  visited  the  United  States,  nor  to  have  had 
any  friends  residing  here.  His  bequest  was  announced  to  Con- 
gress by  President  Jackson  in  1835.  The  money,  which 
amounted  to  above  $515,000,  in  gold,  was  obtained  by  Richard 
Rush  and  brought  to  the  country  in  1838.  This  money  was 
lent  to  the  United  States  Government  by  Levi  Woodbury,  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury,  and  was  invested  in  Arkansas  State 
bonds  at  par.  Some  of  this  money  was  squandered  by  Senator 
Sevier,  of  that  State,  and  his  harpies,  and  the  whole  amount 
was  lost  and  the  bonds  repudiated.  Congress  debated  what  to 
do  with  the  bequest  for  several  years,  and  between  John  Quincy 
Adams  and  Robert  Dale  Owen,  an  agreement  was  completed 


210  THE   SMITHSONIAN   INSTITUTE. 

by  which  the  present  Smithsonian  Institute  was  organized  in 
April,  1846.  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  of  Princeton  College, 
New  Jersey,  was  made  the  Secretary,  or  really  the  Eegent,  and 
Superintendent  of  the  whole  concern.  This  Secretary  was  the 
first  official  in  Washington  after  the  President  who  appropria- 
ted to  himself  a  residence  in  one  of  the  public  buildings.  A 
large  reservation  of  52  acres  was  selected  on  the  knoll  between 
the  Tiber  and  the  Potomac,  nearly  in  the  centre  of  the  city. 
The  architect  was  Mr.  Renforth,  of  Washington,  and  he  de- 
signed an  edifice  of  mediasval  character,  a  sort  of  battlemented 
abbey,  of  Seneca  redstone,  with  towers,  chapels,  etc.,  426  feet 
long  by  about  60  feet  wide.  This  building  cost  $325,000,  and 
when  it  burned  down  in  the  war  period  it  was  again  rebuilt  so 
that  its  erection  and  maintenance  were  said  in  1869  to  have 
involved  an  outlay  of  $450,000.  As  has  been  well  said,  the 
Smithsonian  can  be  indefinitely  extended,  and  there  is  archi- 
tectural reason  why  it  should  be,  to  eke  out  its  shallow  depth, 
in  almost  any  mediaeval  military  style. 

Although  a  handsome  object  in  the  landscape  of  the  city, 
contrasting  well  with  the  large  classical  offices  of  the  Govern- 
ment, it  is  by  no  means  a  favorite  with  those  around  it.  The 
interior  of  the  building  has  an  unsatisfying  and  inhospitable 
look,  much  of  it  being  closed  from  the  public  and  given  up  to 
mere  inhabitancy,  while  the  grounds  around  it,  which,  until 
recently,  were  separated  from  Pennsylvania  Avenue  by  a 
nasty,  exuding  creek,  were  patrolled  by  lewd  and  offensivo 
vagrants,  who  often  committed  outrages  upon  citizens  ventur- 
ing to  cross  from  one  part  of  the  city  to  another  after  dark. 
The  efficiency  of  the  Smithsonian  has  been  much  disputed, 
although  it  has  assisted  several  scientific  expeditions  and 
helped  in  the  publication  of  technical  treatises.  It  maintains 
a  very  perfect  correspondence  with  foreign  learned  societies 
and  publishes  an  annual  report,  which  is  said  to  be  a  little 
more  dry  than  the  report  of  its  associate,  the  Agricultural  De- 
partment. Its  uses  are  nondescript,  and  the  average  inquirer 
will  give  it  up  when  he  asks  precisely  what  they  are,  and  re- 
ceives in  response  a  whole  essay,  which  he  cannot  recollect. 


CHAPTER  XY. 


MY   PURSUIT   OF   CREDIT   MOBILIER. 

All  previous  sensations  of  a  civil  character  in  the  history 
ot  the  nation  were  eclipsed  in  the  years  1872-73  by  the  dis- 
closures which  take  the  general  name  of  Credit  Mobilier.  My 
connection,  as  one  seeking  information,  with  this  celebrated 
scandal,  may  not  improperly  make  the  narrative  of  this 
chapter. 

It  was  in  September,  the  tenth  of  the  month,  that  I  received 
by  telegraph  a  commission  to  proceed  to  the  State  of  Arkansas, 
and  unravel  some  local  mutiny  there,  and  while  making  some 
preliminary  readings,  a  second  communication,  from  another 
source,  asked  me  to  visit  Philadelphia  and  New  York.  It 
became  necessary,  therefore,  to  undertake  the  second  commis- 
sion with  immediate  despatch  in  order  to  improve  the  oppor- 
tunity for  the  first  and  more  distant  one.  The  remainder  of 
this  chapter  is  my  report  of  Commission  No.  2,  as  published 
in  the  Chicago  Tribune. 

The  most  uneasy  and  serious  scandal  which  we  have  yet  had : 
has  undesignedly  grown  out  of  the  lawsuit  of  Henry  S.| 
M'Comb,  of  Wilmington,  Del.,  to  compel  the  delivery  to  him 
of  certain  shares  of  stock  in  the  Credit  Mobilier.  The  suit  is 
taking  place  in  Philadelphia,  which  staid  and  respectable 
Quaker  City  is  the  only  part  of  the  country  uninformed  about 
this  cause  eSUhre.  The  case  in  its  context,  has  been  charged 
to  implicate  two  Speakers  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 


212  GETTING   AT  THE  BEGINNING. 

half-a-dozen  Congressmen,  and  other  dignitaries.  "  Our 
Correspondent  "  in  Washington  was  not,  therefore,  surprised 
to  receive  a  telegraphic  despatch,  as  follows :  "  Please  go  to 
Philadelphia  and  investigate  impartially  the  Crddit  Mobilier 
affair. — Horace  White.'* 

The  diary  of  this  pursuit,  as  far  as  the  first  day's  prosecu 
tion  is  concerned,  will  show  a  novice  how  many  things  have 
to  be  done  within  a  given  time  to  answer  one  newspaper 
requirement. 

At  early  daylight  (September  12)  I  reached  Philadelphia, 
investigated  the  docket  at  the  Supreme  Court  Office  there,  saw 
the  counsel  for  the  plaintiff,  telegraphed  the  plaintiff  in  New 
York  for  a  meeting,  after  ascertaining  his  whereabouts  ;  traced 
the  Credit  Mobilier  back  to  its  origin,  interviewed  members  of 
the  Legislature  contemporaneous  with  the  passage  of  the  act, 
and,  in  ten  hours,  was  on  my  way  to  New  York,  reading,  as  I 
traveled,  the  long  report  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  suit  with  the 
Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania,  in  "  Smith's  Pennsylvania 
State  Reports,"  volume  17. 

In  half  an  hour  after  I  reached  New  York,  I  was  in  con- 
versation with  the  plaintiff  and  other  authorities,  and  that 
night  sat  up  to  "  catch  the  manners  living  as  they  rise,"  by 
jotting  down  the  matter  most  easily  forgotten. 

At  the  early  hour  at  which  I  began  to  perambulate  Phila- 
delphia, I  knew  of  but  two  attorneys  nearly  certain  to  be  in 
their  offices,  the  diligent  and  alert  Henry  R.  Edmunds,  one 
of  my  old  schoolmates,  now  full  of  learning  and  business,  and 
covered  with  venerable  red  hair ;  and  the  gristly  and  tough 
Joseph  A.  Pile,  who  works  all  night  amongst  the  Pandects, 
and  labors  all  day  over  Roman  and  Quaker  law.  Sure  enough, 
there  they  were. 

"  Gentlemen,  do  you  know  anything  of  the  suit  of  Henry  S. 
M'Comb,  who  spells  the  Mick  without  a  c,  the  c  having  dropped 
out  by  reason  of  the  distant  period  when  it  got  in — against  the 
Credit  Mobilier  of  America  ?  " 

"  Why,  no.     There's  nothing  in  the  Ledger  or  the  Franklin 


CREDIT    MOBILIER.  213 

Almanao  about  it.  We've  read  everything  this  morning  bat 
the  obituary  poetry  and  the  editorials,  which  we  preserve  to 
the  end  of  tlie  year,  for  the  solace  of  old  age  and  the  repose  of 
children.'' 

"  The  Credit  Mobilier,"  said  the  Hon.  Joseph  Pile,  "  is  all 
the  while  here  engaged  in  mysterious  suits.  They  are  often 
equity  suits,  before  Masters  in  Chancery,  or  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State,  and  everything  about  them  is  hushed  up. 
Nothing  much  is  published,  and  we  are  all  in  the  dark.  The 
State  sued  the  Credit  Mobilier  for  taxes,  and  this  involved 
appeals  and  two  trials.  But  we  have  seen  no  mention  of  any 
such  case  as  M'Comb  vs.  The  Cr<^dit  Mobiher." 

Here  the  Hon.  H.  R.  Edmunds  produced  a  large  volume  of 
the  Acts  of  the  Legislature  of  1859,  and  he  said: 

"  Gath,  this  is  the  beginning  of  the  Credit  Mobilier.  It  was 
snaked  through  the  Legislature  fourteen  years  ago,  under  the 
name  of  the  Pennsylvania  Fiscal  Agency." 

I  took  the  book  and  made  this  note  from  it : 

The  Fiscal  Agency  began  November  1,  1859,  W.  F.  Packer 
being  Governor  of  the  State.  The  '^  Pennsylvania  Fiscal 
Agency  "  was  incorporated,  with  the  following  Commissioners, 
or  Directors:  Samuel  Reeves,  ElHs  Lewis,  Garrick  Mallory, 
Duif  Green,  David  R.  Porter,  Jacob  Zeigler,  Charles  M.  Hall, 
Hon.  R.  Kneass,  Robert  J.  Ross,  William  T.  Dougherty,  Isaac 
Hugus,  C.  M.  Reed,  William  Workman,  Asa  Packer,  Jesse 
Lazear,  C.  S.  Kauffman,  C.  L.  Ward,  and  Henry  M.  Fuller. 

The  act  of  incorporation  was  of  the  most  general  and  dis- 
cursive character,  and  covered  all  operations  under  the  sun, 
banking,  opening  of  offices  in  foreign  lands,  funding  State 
debts,  assuming  the  responsibility  for  corporation  debts,  guar- 
anteeing bonds,  etc.  It  provides  that  the  general  offices  shall 
be  in  Philadelphia,  and  that  a  certain  proportion  of  the 
Directors  shall  be  citizens  of  Pennsylvania.  This  act  is  in 
six  clauses,  and  it  provides  that  the  corporation  shall  consist 
of  50,000  shares  of  flOO  each,  and  that. when  5,000  shares  are 
subscribed,  and  5  per  cent,  thereon  paid,  the  shareholders  may 


214  THE   PENNSYLVANIA   FISCAL  AGENCY. 

elect  five  directors  and  begin  business.  The  Fiscal  Agency, 
therefore,  contemplated  a  capital  of  15,000,000,  but  required 
only  ^25,000  to  be  put  up  in  the  first  place,  and  all  facilities 
were  given  for  watering  the  stock,  etc.  The  State  was  to  be 
entitled  to  a  tax  of  one-half  a  mill  on  capital  stock  for  each  1 
per  cent,  of  dividends. 

And  this  little  charter,  said  our  correspondent,  brought  to 
life  one  year  before  the  election  of  President  Lincoln,  is  the 
foundation  of  the  stupendous  Credit  Mobilier,  which,  as  an 
alias  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  robbed  the 
generous  Age  and  Nation  which  endowed  it,  and  bribed  the 
Congress  of  the  people  ! 

"  It  had  to  stand  a  suit  two  years  ago,"  said  Mr.  Pile,  "  for 
taxes  due  the  State  under  the  charter,  amounting  to  above 
half  a  million  of  dollars.  All  tax-suits  of  this  sort  are  tried 
in  Dauphin,  the  county  of  the  State  Capital.  The  Company, 
thei:i  under  the  alias  of  the  Credit  Mobilier,  beat  the  State, 
reversed  the  decision  of  Judge  Pearson,  and  paid  nothing. 
You  will  find  the  suit  here  in  Volume  67,  Pennsylvania  State 
Reports. " 

"  And  here,"  said  Mr.  Edmunds,  is  the  continuation  of  the 
Fiscal  Agency  in  a  report  only  five  years  old.  It  put  off  its 
old  apparel  and  took  a  disguise." 

Our  correspondent  then  copied  the  original  act  by  which  the 
State  gave  the  Fiscal  Agency  extended,  powers  to  veil  the 
operations  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Ring : 

"  Laws  of  Pennsylvania,  1867,  page  291,  Act  No.  278. 

"  A  further  supplement  to  the  act  to  incorporate  the  Penn- 
sylvania Fiscal  Agency,  approved  November  1, 1859,  empower- 
ing said  Company,  now  known  as  the  Credit  Mobilier  of 
America,  to  provide  for  the  completion  of  certain  contracts. 

"  Section  1.  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania,  in 
General  Assembly  met,  and  it  is  hereby  enacted  by  the 
authority  of  the  same,  That,  in  every  case  where  the  Credit 
Mobilier  of  America — a  body  corporate  established  by  the  laws 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  215 

of  the  Commonwealth — has  heretofore  agreed,  or  shall  here- 
after agree,  to  aid  any  contractor  with  a  railroad  company,  by 
advancing  money  to  such  contractor,  or  by  guaranteeing  the 
execution  of  a  contract,  for  the  building,  construction,  o'- 
equipment  of  a  railroad,  or  for  material  or  rolling-stock,  i^ 
shall  be  lawful  for  the  said  Credit  Mobilier  of  America  to  takr 
such  measures  as  will  tend  to  secure  the  full  and  faithful  per- 
formance of  the  contract ;  and  the  said  Credit  Mobilier  oi 
America,  may  to  that  end,  appoint  its  own  officers,  agent,  or 
superintendent,  to  execute  the  contract  in  place  of  the  con- 
tractor so  aided  or  guaranteed, — saving,  nevertheless,  to  all 
parties,  their  just  rights  under  the  contracts,  according  to  their 
true  intent  and  meaning. 
("Signed,") 

"  John  P.  Glass,  Speaker,  H.  R,,'' 
"  Louis  W.  Hall,  Speaker,  Senate.". 
"  Approved,  the  28th  day  of  February,  A.  D.  1867." 

"  John  W.  Geary,  Governor." 

"  You  will  find  out  here,"  said  my  informant, "  that  nothing 
ever  leaks  out  about  the  Cri^dit  Mobilier.  Ben.  Brewster  is 
their  attorney,  and  the  papers  are  taken  out  of  court,  so  that 
nobody  can  get  at  them.  I  don't  believe  that  any  considerable 
portion  of  the  Bar  knows  anything  about  the  suit  of  M'Comb 
rs.  The  Credit  Mobiher." 

Our  correspondent  now  set 'out  to  find  somebody  familiar 
with  the  Legislature  at  the  period  of  the  passing  of  the  Fiscal 
Agency  Act,  so  as  to  understand  how  this  doppelgauger  cor- 
poration came  into  the  world.  All  inquiry  was  answered  by 
the  name  of  Colonel  A.  R.  McClure,  as  the  person  who  had, 
at  the  time  specified,  been  an  attendant  or  member  of  the 
State  Legislature. 

Colonel  McClure,  a  little  grayer  and  redder  in  these  cam- 
paign-times than  of  old,  being  full  of  patriotism  and  public 
speaking,  said  as  follows  : 

"  The  Fiscal  Agency  began  in  the  vagary  of  old  Duff  Green, 


216  THE    INCORPORATORS. 

Tyler's  editor,  who  was  a  visionary  man  ;  and  the  Legislature 
humored  him  by  the  presentation  of  the  charter  he  solicited. 
He  came  to  Harrisburg  in  the  fall  of  1859,  without  a  cent, 
and  being  a  kindly  old  bore,  whose  name  and  years  were 
venerable,  he  wormed  the  charter  from  the  members  by  per- 
sonal solicitation.  We  all  supposed  that  he  wanted  to  assume 
the  consolidation  and  care  of  our  State  debt,  which  is  divided 
up  in  parcels,  and  scattered  around  in  many  forms.  The 
charter  got  from  Duff  Green  into  the  hands  of  Charles  M. 
Hall,  who  sold  it  to  the  Credit  Mobilier  people, — some  say  to 
their  proxy,  George  Francis  Train.  Hall  is  a  creature  of 
Simon  Cameron,  and  was  made  Postmaster  of  Philadelphia 
under  Johnson,  and  rejected." 

"  Is  that  the  way.  Colonel  McClure,  that  charters  are  bought 
and  sold  in  this  State  ?" 

"  Precisely.  No  business  man  thinks  of  applying  for  a  char- 
ter, and  hazarding  blackmail.  He  goes  into  the  street,  and 
buys  some  oi  the  many  charters  which  have  been  issued  to 
charter-jobbers,  and  cover  all  forms  of  corporate  enterprise, 
from  raising  wrecks  to  funding  the  debts  of  nations.  If  we  are 
fortunate  we  shall  get  a  General  Incorporation  Act  passed  in 
the  next  State  Constitution,  and  so  dispense  with  the  present 
peddling  in  nondescript  charters." 

"  Will  you  please  tell  me  whether  you  know  any  ot  the 
names  of  the  '  Commissioners '  or  incorporators  under  the 
first  charter,— that  of  1859  ?" 

"  That  is  not  vital,"  said  Colonel  McClure,  "  as  none  of 
these  men  are  retained  in  the  Crddit  Mobilier.  However, 
Samuel  J.  Reeves  is  a  wealthy  iron-man  of  this  city  ;  Ellis 
Lewis  was  Chief-Justice  of  the  Slate  ;  Garrick  Mallory  was  a 
great  lawyer  here  ;  David  R.  Porter  Vas  the  father  of  Horace 
Porter,  Grant's  Secretary  ;  Jacob  Zeigler  was  Clerk  of  the 
House  ;  Horn  R.  Kneass  was  a  city  politician  ;  Robert  J.  Ross 
is  a  banker  at  Harrisburg  ;  W.  T.  Dougherty  is  the  brother  of 
another  banker  there  ;  Isaac  Hugus  was  a  Democratic  State 
Senator  and  Cameron  man  ;  C.  M.  Reed  lived  at  Erie  ;  Asa 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  217 

Packer  is  the  Liehigli  millionaire  ;  Jesse  Lazear  was  Congress- 
man from  Greene  County  ;  C.  S.  Kauffman  was  in  the  Legis- 
lature from  Lancaster  ;  Henry  M.  Fuller  was  a  Native  Amer- 
ican Congressman  ;  and  C.  L.  Ward,  an  operator  of  Towanda, 
is  dead.  The  names  in  the  Credit  Mobilier  are  mainly  '  blinds/ 
set  up  to  stand  for  other  people.  The  Fiscal  Agency  was  a 
chimera ;  the  Credit  Mobilier  entered  the  skin  of  it  as  the 
devils  possessed  the  crazy  man." 

"  Have  you  read  the  exposure  of  the  Congressmen  in  the 
suit  of  M'Comb  against  the  Credit  Mobilier  ?" 

"  Yes.  It's  true.  The  only  names  that  surprise  me  there 
are  Dawes  and  Boutwell,  because  both  are  too  shrewd.  My 
experience  in  legislative  things  and  corporations  teaches  me 
that  the  continuous  legislation  required  to  accomplish  all  the 
purposes  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  could  not  have  been 
attained  without  bribery  in  the  highsst  seats.  Only  the  influ- 
ence of  the  highest  leaders  could  have  passed  such  rapacious 
acts  through  Congress,  and  no  men  of  reputation  would  have 
pressed  them  upon  their  colleagues  except  by  pecuniary  inter- 
est. The  letters  of  Ames  are  recognized  as  perfectly  valid,  and 
M' Comb's  reputation  in  the  middle  States  is  that  of  a  gentle- 
man who  will  not  lie.  The  people  implicated,  who  have  been 
quaking  over  the  probability  of  these  exposures,  must  be  reliev- 
ed that  they  have  come."  * 

Our  correspondent  now  visited  the  office  of  the  Clerk  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  in  the  venerable  State  House  row.     It  was  a 

*  The  New  York  Sun  published  the  Credit  Mobilier  exposure  in  the 
month  of  August,  1872,  having,  it  is  said,  purchased  a  copy,  surreptitiously- 
taken  from  the  Commissioner's  office.  The  vital  part  of  the  abstracts  pub- 
lished were  some  letters  of  Oakes  Ames  to  Henry  S.  M'Comb,  saying  that 
he  had  "  placed  Credit  Mobilier  Stock  in  Congress  wnere  it  would  do  the 
most  good,"  and  stating  the  number  of  shares  allotted  to  each  ot  certain 
States.  A  memorandum  taken  by  M'Comb  from  Ames's  pocket-book  indi- 
cated that  the  Congressmen  implicated  were  Dawes,  Eliot,  Blaine,  Bout- 
well,  Kelley,  Sohofield,  Fowler,  Patterson,  Garfield,  H.  Wltson,  Bingham, 
Colfax,  and  Brooks. 

10 


218  GETTING   AT  IT. 

little  old  hole,  and  two  wliite-liaired  old  parchment  men  were 
moving  around  the  dockets,  exceedingly  impertinent  as  to  the 
case  we  were  looking  for.  As  we  approached  the  Cri^dit 
Mobilier,  everybody's  spectacles  seemed  to  take  a  jump,  and  all 
the  venerable  ears  flapped  like  a  puppet's  when  you  pull  a; 
string.  There  was  a  smell  of  old  sheepskins,  and  an  impres-' 
sion  of  obsolete  styles  of  stenography  all  over  the  place.. 
Everybody  looked  like  aged  phonographic  characters  in) 
motion.  •  : 

Our  correspondent  got  behind  the  docket-desk,  and  over- 
hauled the  ponderous  manuscript  tomes.  After  looking 
without  reward  for  a  while,  he  took  up  an  equity  docket,  and, 
on  page  313,  found  the  long-expected  case  of  M'Comb  vs.  The 
Credit  Mobilier." 

It  is  set  down  for  the  January  term  of  1869,  number  19  in 
order.  About  the  wdiole  of  one  of  the  great  folio  pages  is 
covered  with  the  successive  dispositions  of  the  case,  as  it  is 
now  continued,  now  put  over,  now  referred,  and  again  post- 
poned. The  last  entries  show  that,  on  the  20th  of  April,  1872, 
J.  E.  Gowan,  for  plaintiff,  had  the  time  extended  for  closing 
plaintiff's  testimony  90  days  from  date  ;  and  that  a  further 
extension  of  60  days  had  also  been  granted.  The  case,  there 
fore  will  go  over  the  Presidential  election,  as  both  set  of  litig- 
ants are  Grant  people.  He  polls  the  undivided  vote  of  the 
Credit  Mobilier,  who  think  Greeley  will  not  be  a  "  Safe  Pre- 
sident "  for  such  operations  as  theirs. 

The  defendants  enumerated  in  this  suit  are  as  follows  : 
Sidney  Dillon,  John  B.  Alley,  Roland  G.  Hazard,  Charles 
McGlirisky,*  Oliver  W.  Barnes,*  Thomas  Rowland,  Paul  Pohl, 
jr.,*  Oakes  Ames,  Charles  H.  Neilson,  Thomas  C.  Durant, 
James  M.  S.  Williams,  Benedict  Stewart,*  John  Duff,  Charles 
M.  Hall,  and  II.  G.  Fant. 

The  five  names  to  which  the  asterisk  is  affixed  are  stool- 
pigeons,  put  on  by  Ames  &  Co.  For  instance,  Thomas  Row- 
land is  a  shovel-maker  and  compeer  of  Ames  in  the  same 
business,  and  a  quiet  country-side  man  in  a  hamlet  near  Phila- 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  219 

delpliia.  The  names  of  McGhrisky,  Barnes,  Rowland,  Pohl, 
and  Neilson  were  afterwards  indicated;  to  me  by  M'Comb  as  of 
no  potency  or  presence  in  the  inside  affairs  of  the  Crddit  Mobil- 
ier.  Another  suit  had  bx3en  in  process  from  October  3,  .1868, 
a  period  of  four  years,  and  another  commentary  upon  the  end- 
less career  of  Chancery  proceedings.  Involving  only  1300,000, 
here  were  four  years'  work  put  upon  this  single  piece  of  litiga- 
tion. Yerily,  one  might  say,  in  a  paraphrase  of  Mr.  Lincoln  : 
*'  Even  so  ;  if  every  dollar  taken  by  the  swindler  must  be  re- 
placed with  another  taken  by  the  lawyer,  still  we  must  cry  : 
'  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  good  and  righteous  alto- 
gether.' " 

There  have  been,  at  various  times,  employed  by  Colonel 
M'Comb,  as  plaintiff  in  this  case,  such  counsel  as  William 
Strong,  now  Judge  Strong,  of  the  United  States  Supremo 
Bench,  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  and  James  E.  Gowan.  It  is  at 
present  managed  by  S.  G.  Thompson,  son  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Chief-Justice  Thompson,  as  associate  of  the  Hon.  Jeremiah  S. 
Black.  The  defence  is  entrusted  to  Robert  McMurtrie,  who 
stands  at  the  head  of  the  Philadelphia  Bar,  as  successor  to 
John  O'Brien,  James  Ottarson,  and  other  less  lawyers  in  the 
same  case.  This  would  seem  to  show  that  Dillon,  Alley,  Ames 
&,  Co.  mean  to  contest  strenuously  the  claims  of  M'Comb. 

It  appeared  that  the  Court  had  appointed  A.  W.  Norris  to 
take  testimony  in  this  proceeding  in  equity  ;  and  searching  out 
Norris's  whereabouts,  I  found  that  he  occupied  the  ofhce  of 
S.  G.  Thompson,  the  plaintiff's  counsel.  The  next  step  was 
to  see  whether  Norris,  or  Thompson,  or  both,  would  satisfy  a 
laudable  curiosity,  and  give  me  the  testimony  to  consume, 
assimilate,  and  exhale. 

Behold  our  correspondent,  therefore  on  the  way  to  the  office 
of  Thompson  with  a  p. 

There  arc  periods  in  life  when  the  p  in  Thompson's  name 
appears  to  be  an  insurmountable  barrier.  Such  was  the  pre- 
sent. The  mind  of  the  correspondent,  in  its  anxious,  not  to 
say  precipitate  condition,  transferred  to  the  p  all  that  might  be 


220  VISITING   THE   COUNSEL'S   OFFICE. 

obdurate  in  mankind,  and  in  Thompson  individually,  and  fond- 
ly imagined  that,  if  he  had  spelled  the  name  in  smooth,  flow- 
ing fashion,  Thomson, — with  no  thump  to  the  pronunciation 
of  the  same, — he  could  have  been  a  man  of  genial  yiclina- 
tion,  and  those  conversational  talents  which  are  conducive  to  a 
great  deal  of  newspaper  information  unconsciously.  Mentally 
assured  that  the  p  in  Thompson's  name  would  not  permit  him  toj 
be  an  obliging  man,  I  took  the  precaution  of  stopping  at  the 
telegraph  office  and  sending  a  message  to  Wilmington,  Del., 
to  inquire  the  whereabouts  of  Thompson's  client,  Colonel 
JVrComb. 

Arriving  at  Mr.  Thompson's  office,  I  recognized  in  him  an 
acquaintance  not  far  from  my  own  age,  and  then  I  despaired. 
The  newspaper  profession,  abused  as  it  is,  is  the  only  one  where 
a  man  never  puts  on  airs  over  being  the  repository  of  anything. 
He  sheddeth  and  imparteth  like  the  gentle  dew  of  Heaven 
upon  the  place  beneath,  even  if  a  person  of  the  same  age 
should  occupy  the  place.  The  only,  thing  in  which  he  is  per- 
fectly at  home  is  instruction.  But  your  lawyer  delights  in 
magnifying  his  mission,  and  the  extent  of  the  confidence  re- 
posed in  him.  In  Thompson's  manner  there  was  a  deep  and 
bibliological  mystery,  associated  with  a  covert  and  gentlemanly 
sense  of  delight  that  he  had  come  to  be  an  authority.  At  first, 
the  social  animal,  beaming  and  gladsome  (I  say  gladsome, 
because  nobody  ever  knew  a  lawyer  to  be  really  glad),  Thomp- 
son in  a  minute  divined  my  errand,  and  asserted  the  counsel. 
What  a  dulcet  sound  to  the  young  and  ardent  lawyer  lies  in 
that  word,  Counsel.  Behold  him,  referring  to  his  grandfather 
in  a  subdued  tone,  but  with  more  or  less  apparent  solemnity, 
as  ''  my  client."  Observe  him  step  in  advance  of  the  pris- 
oner at  the  dock,  saying :  "  'Sli !  'Honor,  I  appear  as  counsel 
for  the  prisoner  !  "  Nothing  in  life  becomes  him  like  these 
occasions,  and,  in  the  presence  of  a  newspaper  man,  Thompson 
was  now  all  counsel. 

"  I  think  I  know  your  purpose,"  he  said;  "it  is  the  Credit 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  221 

Mobilier  dase.  I  am  in  an  embarassing  position  as  to  that.  I 
am — ahem ! — I  am  counsel  for  Colonel  M'Comb." 

"  Yes.  But  like  Captain  Cuttle  when  Sol  Gills  left  his  last 
will  and  testament,  I  say  where's  the  testament, — the  testi- 
mony ?  " 

"  A  part  of  it  has  got  out.  Col.  M*Comb  has  written  to  me 
to  ask  how  it  did  leak  out.  Do  you  know  a  man  named 
Gibson?" 

"Yes.  Gibson  is  the  industrious  mouse.  He  published 
eleven  columns  of  this  testimony  in  the  New  York  Sun^  as 
well  as  the  Ames  letter  and  memoranda." 

"  There  is  a  person  of  that  name,"  said  Mr.  Thompson ;  I 
suspect  I  know  how  the  letters  got  out.  A  man  came  to  me 
with  a  letter  from  Judge  Black.  Perhaps  I  don't  know.  I 
think  I  do." 

There  was  great  and  impressive  mystery  at  this  point.  Mr. 
Thompson  fell  to  examining  a  copy  of  the  New  York  Sun  in 
my  possession.  He  read  it  all  over  as  if  he  had  never  before 
beheld  it.  He  smiled  a  counsellor-kind  of  smile  at  times,  as 
if  he  had  recognized  something.  The  counsellor  finally  told 
me  the  trial  had  been  long  because  all  equity  proceedings  are 
So;  that,  when  Judge  Strong  had  charge  of  it,  he  could  not 
take  any  step  without  consulting  with  Judge  Black ;  and  that 
Colonel  M'Comb  had  refused  to  leave  the  Ames  letters,  in  their 
original,  with  the  testimony,  but  had  copies  made.  He  said 
that  the  Ames  letters  were  in  existence ;  that  the  implication 
of  puolic  men  appeared  not  yet  to  be  exhausted ;  and  that  I 
could  see  the  testimony  with  an  order  from  M'Comb.  As  I 
left  the  office,  Mr.  Thompson  said: 

"  If  you  printed  the  testimony  and  letters,  and  all  the  people 
in  the  country  read  them,  it  wouldn't  change  a  vote  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  not.  But  it  is  a  horrible  admission  to  make  about 
one's  countrymen.  Nothing  changes  votes  in  this  Christian 
age,  but  money  and  patronage ;  is  it  so  ?  " 

I  made  up  my  mind  that  the  part  of  the  testimony  already 
published,  had  first  met  the  eye  of  Jerry  Black,  and  that  he 


222  STARTING  TO   SEE   M'COMB. 

had  let  it  out  to  a  reporter,  who  got  access  to  the  manuscript, 
and  hastily  copied  or  imitated  such  parts  as  he  wanted.  It 
also  occurred  to  me,  if  any  of  the  immaculate  men  referred  to 
in  that  list  of  the  bribed,  had,  all  the  while,  been  conscious 
that  Jerry  Black  was  aware  of  the  purchase  and  sale,  and  that 
young  lawyers  had  also  found  it  out,  and  that  the  area  of  ex- 
posure was  inevitably  widening  toward  explosion,  liow  disturbed 
at  times  must  have  been  their  sleep !  The  sleep  of  the  dis- 
tinguished hypocrite,  what  agony  it  must  be  of  nights !  To 
know  that,  in  the  hands  of  remorseless  men  there  is  a  secret ; 
that  all  time  and  occasion  press  nearer  and  nearer  to  its 
revealment;  that  come  it  must,  and  that  it  must  be  met. 
Such  is  the  modern  Eugene  Aram  in  high  places.  But  then 
"it  wouldn't  change  a  vote  !  "  Yes,  it  will.  Not  this  year, 
perhaps,  but  the  next  or  the  next,  and  it  will  change  history, 
too,  and  men's  conception  of  man,  and  the  man's  happiness, 
and  the  children's  heritage  of  honor.  Politics  may  apologize 
for  bribery,  but  the  dead  corpse  will  be  apparent  the  longer  it 
is  kept.  No  political  party  in  the  world  can  reason  away  the 
conclusion  that,  if  a  trusted  statesman  sold  his  vote  and  influ- 
ence, the  public  faith,  and  the  public  law,  and  all  the  while 
played  the  outward  part  of  piety  and  honor,  he  did  a  thing  of 
infamy,  and  lived  a  lie,  and  his  face  will  be  turned  to  the  wall. 
Finding  that  the  Colonel,  the  plaintiff,  was  not  in  Wilming- 
ton, but  in  New  York  City,  I  telegraphed  to  No.  20  Nassau 
street,  and,  in  half  an  hour,  got  an  answer,  giving  me  his 
address,  and  saying  he  would  see  me.  I  bought  the  State 
Report  with  the  long  Credit  Mobilier  case  in  it,  to  read  on  the 
way,  and  was  soon  in  the  midst  of  a  mass  of  villany.  What 
things  people  will  do  to  make  money !  Half  the  world,  it 
would  appear  from  the  law-book,  ought  to  be  in  the  penitenti- 
ary. Here  is  a  charter  begged  by  a  poor  old  man  for  a  vision- 
ary end,  or,  perhaps,  to  serve  some  scheme  of  rapacity  never 
developed,  which,  stamped  with  mendicancy  at  its  birth,  goes 
through  the  stews  of  politics  and  commerce,  and  becomes  at 
last  the  bawd  of  men  to  whom  this  country  has  been  generous, 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  223 

selecting  them  to  lay  a  path  between  the  coasts  of  the  Conti- 
nent, and  liberally  advancing  them  money  and  credit  to  per- 
form the  work  with  conscientious  celerity,  and  make  their  lives 
useful  and  their  names  renowned.  With  the  spirit  of  Joseph's 
brethren,  they  hasten  to  put  the  heir  in  the  pit,  and  institute 
therefor  a  bastard  corporation,  parasitical  in  its  nature,  which 
shall  eat  the  life  of  its  wholesome  brother,  and  divert  the  rev- 
enues and  gifts  of  a  highway  whose  achievement  the  world 
admires,  into  a  mere  "  fence,"  or  receiving-shop  for  stolen  goods. 
Having  succeeded  in  this,  beyond  the  usual  fate  of  roguery, 
they  next  turn  about  and  swindle  the  Commonwealth,  which 
gave  them  the  bastard  charter,  out  of  above  half  a  million  of 
taxes.  Such  was  the  purport  of  the  long  report  I  read  on  the 
way  to  New  York  City.  Prosperous  we  are  indeed,  but  a;t 
what  moral  cost  ?  Will  the  world  believe  that,  while  we  were 
waging  a  warfare  with  the  slavery  of  the  whole  body,  we  were 
making  the  patriotism  in  whose  name  we  fought,  a  cover  for 
such  crimes  as  the  Credit  Mobilier  ? 

The  Pacific  Railway  exists;  but  the  corner-stone  of  the 
masons  thereof  was  plunder. 

At  9  o'clock  I  walked  into  the  great  commercial,  social,  and 
gamester's  market  in  New  York,  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  and 
soon  afterward  the  handsome  Colonel  Harry  M'Comb  walked 
in. 

He  had  been  a  poor  boy,  native  and  now  citizen  of  Wilming- 
ton, Del.  Handsome  and  prepossessing  from  his  childhood  up, 
he  was  prosperous  enough,  when  the  war  began,  to  become  a 
merchant  in  supplies,  and  distinguished  himself  by  the  energy 
and  resolution  with  which  he  competed  with  men  of  greater 
capital,  and  wider  reputation.  He  is  said  to  be  the  richest 
man  in  Delaware,  the  Duponts  probably  "  excepted,"  and  his 
business  at  liome,  in  Wilmington,  is  the  tanning  of  leather. 
With  an  orthodox  education,  and  the  best  social  connections 
in  a  quiet  and  virtuous  community,  he  superadds  to  the  dashing 
contractor  and  merchant,  the  semi-Southern  tone  and  spirit  of 
genial  address,  magnanimous  personal  impulses,  the  touch  of 


224  COLONEL   HARRY  M'COMB. 

honor,  and  the  carriage  of  a  man  of  the  world,  yet  heedful  of 
his  reputation.  Nature  designed  him  for  a  large  part  in  life  ; 
he  is  the  equal  of  any  to  whom  he  speaks,  and  courteous  to  all. 
In  New  York  he  takes  a  rank  relatively  as  high  as  at  home. 
Invincible,  imposing,  cool,  agreeable,  he  is  the  least  provincial 
and  the  most  exalted  of  men  of  his  class.  He  is  portly,  care- 
ful of  dress,  loud  in  nothing,  with  honhommie,  natural  intelli- 
gence, and  ease. 

"  Our  correspondent"  at  once  made  known  the  object  of  his 
errand,  and  the  conversation  which  followed  is  here  set  down. 
An  interview  such  as  follows,  often  does  injustice  to  a  public 
man  by  the  unavoidable  misplacing  of  the  order  of  questions 
and  answers,  so  that  statements  often  appear  climatic,  and 
things  take  context  of  themselves,  and  give  impressions  which 
the  just  order  of  the  dialogue  would  not  show.  The  subjoined 
is  believed  to  be  a  fair  and  candid  relation  of  this  interview : 

"  Colonel  M'Comb,'''  said  our  correspondent,  my  errand  is  to 
get  from  you  the  impartial  truth  as  to  the  revelations  of  late 
made  concerning  the  sums  of  Credit  Mobilier  stock  allotted  to 
members  of  Congress  about  the  year  1868.  You  have  seen  the 
published  extracts  and  the  printed  memorandum  made  by  you 
upon  the  back  of  a  letter  from  Oakes  Ames,  in  which  memo- 
randum 2,000  or  3,000  shares,  respectively,  are  set  down  to 
these  persons :  Blaine,  Colfax,  Boutwell,  Gparfield,  Kelley,  Bing- 
ham, Senators  Patterson,  of  New  Hampshire,  Fowler  and  Henry 
Wilson  ;  Schofield  and  Kelley,  the  deceased  member  Eliot,  and 
Henry  L.  Dawes.  I  wish  to  know  if  this  is  a  hoax  or  a  re- 
ality. I  also  wish  permission,  as  so  much  has  been  said  already, 
to  see  the  testimony." 

Colonel  M'Comb:  "I  have  given  my  testimony  before  the 
Commissioner  to  take  it  by  appointment  of  the  Court.  The 
letters  from  Oakes  Ames  are  in  my  possession,  and  copies  of 
them  have  been  taken  in  the  testimony.  But  I  was  surprised 
to  see  the  letters  and  several  columns  of  the  testimony  printed 
here  in  the  public  papers,  and  disclaim  any  agency  in  that  reve- 
lation.    It  would  not  be  proper  for  me  to  give  you  an  order  to 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  225' 

see  the  testimony,  unless  Mr.  McMurtrie,  counsel  for  the  de- 
fense concurred." 

"But  why  permit  these  terrible  excerpts  to  go  broadcast,  if 
they  are-  not  parts  of  the  testimony,  to  do  injury  to  eminent 
and  innocent  people  ? 

Colonel  M'Comb :  "  They  are  parts  of  the  testimony,  and 
that  is  the  reason  why  I  can  have  no  hand  in  anticipating  their 
inevitable  publicity.  Somebody  in  your  profession  has  had 
access  to  the  Commissioner's  manuscript,  and  taken  that  part 
of  the  evidence,  sometimes  copied  it  with  haste,  and  often 
without  accuracy,  and  again  attempted  to  condense  it.  He  has, 
besides,  copied  injurious  parts  without  the  link  between.  But 
what  is  printed  is  substantially  there.  I  endeavored  to  keep 
the  names  of  those  gentlemen  back,  but  Mr.  Oakes  Ames  was 
perfectly  indifferent  to  the  exposure  of  his  friends.  He  is 
about  to  retire  from  Congressional  life,  and  will  take  no  step  to 
cover  anybody's  nakedness. 

"  How  did  you  seek  to  avoid  this  disclosure  ?  " 

Colonel  M'Comb :  "  In  the  first  place,  I  tried  to  have  the  pro- 
ceedings before  a  private  Board  of  Beferees  or  Commissioners, 
to  be  named  by  the  Court,  both  parties  to  the  suit  consenting. 
They  had  all  along  been  saying  that  my  suit  was  merely  a 
blackmail  operation ;  and,  when  I  brought  it  to  trial,  and  ex- 
pressed my  willingness  to  put  it  in  arbitration,  Ames,  Alley, 
Dillon,  and  the  rest,  cried :  '  Oh !  he  will  never  dare  to  put  it 
in  open  Court ;  he  has  no  case,  and  shows  that  he  has  none  by 
making  it  a  private  trial ! '  I  was  thus  forced  to  bring  open  suit 
in  the  State  Courts  of  Equity.  I  laid  my  papers  of  all  sorts, 
which  bore  reference  to  this  suit,  before  my  counsel,  Judge 
Black.  He  read  them  over,  and  said :  '  M'Comb,  these  men 
will  never  dare  to  let  this  case  come  to  trial  with  these  reputa- 
tions involved  in  it.'  But  tliey  did,  and  fought  and  defied  it  at 
every  step.  Finally  I  came  to  a  spot  where,  in  the  cross-ex- 
amination, these  letters  of  Oakes  Ames  were  vital  to  my  cause, 
and  I  again  notified  Alley  and  the  rest,  that  I  should  be  com- 
pelled to  put  them  in.     Ames  knew  all  about  their  contents, 


226  WHY  m'comb  produceu  the  famous  letters. 

but  he  did  not  move  one  step.  I  produced  them  after  repeated 
taunts  to  do  so,  and  a  transcript  of  them  has  come  to  light,  as 
could  not,  probably,  be  avoided.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
that,  had  I  been  assisted  by  gentlemen  as  Ames  was,  I  should 
have  made  every  sacrifice  rather  than  betray  them,  as  he  has 
permitted  the  course  of  this  suit  to  do.  With  all  of  those 
gentlemen  we  stand  upon  terms  of  fair  fellowship,  and  most  of  ^ 
them  are  our  party  friends." 

*'  There  is  no-  politics  in  this  suit,  then  ?  " 

Colonel  M'Comb:  "  None  whatever!  I  told  the  editor  of 
your  paper,  at  the  Brevoort  House,  last  July,  that  I  could  not 
support  Greeley  ;  that  Grant  was  not  my  first  choice,  but  that 
I  could  not  be  convinced  to  vote  for  Greeley.  The  suit  in  which 
I  am  plaintiff  began  before  General  Grant  had  fairly  got  into 
his  office.  It  is  for  a  direct  and  considerable  money-loss  which 
Oakes  Ames  obliged  me  to  make  by  his  bad  faith, — a  loss 
which  is  not  merely  in  stock  no-t  delivered,  but  stock  which  I 
took  from  my  own  share  to  keep  a  contract  with  a  friend.  The 
letters  of  Ames  belong  to  this  suit,  showing  that  he  professed 
to  divert  my  stock  to  Legislative  uses,  and  act  as  the  trustee 
for  those  Congressmen  to  wham  he  presented  it;  and  the 
memorandum  on  the  back  of  one  of  these  letters  shovrs  that 
just  the  amount  he  took  from  me  he  put  to  tlie  account  of  the 
persons  thereon  named.  The  names  he  read  to  me  from  a 
memorandum  book,  and  I  wrote  them  down  in  the  office  as  he 
dictated  them.  They  remain  as  they  were  put  on  that  letter, 
many  seasons  ago,  and  1  repeat  that,  if  I  had  not  got  those 
letters  in  at  the  time  I  put  them  in,  they  would  not  have  been 
in  order  subsequently." 

"  How  came  you  to  lose  your  own  stock  through  Ames'  con- 
fiscating yours  ? " 

Colonel  M'Comb  :  "  It  happened  in  this  wise :  Hamilton  G. 
Fant  asked  me  to  take  up  for  him,  when  I  came  to  New  York, 
$25,000  worth  of  Crddit  Mobilier  shares.  I  gave  the  order  for 
it,  and  told  Crane,  the  secretary,  to  draw  on  him  for  the  money. 
They  said  they  did  notknow  much  about  Fant,  and  preferred 


CREDIT  MOBILIER.  22T 

my  check.  I  got  a  power  of  attorney  from  Fant  to  make  the 
purchase,  but  the  power  of  attorney  was  bad  in  form,  and 
Crane,  the  Secretary  of  the  Credit  Mobih'er,  made  out  a  new 
and  correct  power  of  attorney, — which  is  a  hnk  of  evidence  in 
my  suit.  1  got  a  certified  check  of  my  own,  and  paid  for  the 
stock.  This  check  was  mislaid  in  the  ofhce  ;  and  when,  after 
some  time,  it  was  discovered  that  Fant  had  not  paid  for  his 
stock,  the  Company  drew  a  draft  upon  him  for  the  amount. 
His  circumstances  had  meantime  changed,  and  the  draft  came 
back  protested.  The  Company  now  notified  me  that  they  ex- 
pected me  to  pay  the  draft,  and  this  led  to  a  search  for  the  cer- 
tified check,. whicli  came  to  light.  At  this  period  I  was  called 
away,  and  was  absent  some  time — some  three  or  four  months 
— attending  to  matters  in  a  distant  quarter.  But  I  had  prom- 
ised Mr.  King,  of  Massachusetts,  to  deliver  to  him  $25,000 
worth  of  stock,  and  expected  to  give  him  Fant's  stock.  Cakes 
Ames,  however,  would  not  deliver  to  me  Fant's  stock,  and,  in 
excuse,  showed  me  in  the  registry-book  that  he  had  disbursed 
the  $25,000  amongst  the  members  of  Congress  aforesaid.  I 
was,  therefore,  forced  to  take  of  my  own  Credit  Mobilier  stock 
$25,000  worth  at  the  original  valuation,  and  deliver  it  to 
King.  My  suit  is  for  this  stock,  and  the  dividends  which  it 
produced.  Whether  Cakes  Ames  kept  it,  or  paid  dividends 
bonds  or  money  out  of  it  to  others,  is  not  my  business  to  in- 
quire.    I  want  what  is  mine." 

"  How  does  Fant's  name  appear  in  your  suit  added  to  the 
list  of  defendants  ?" 

Colonel  M'Comb  :  "  They  liad  arranged  at  one  time  to  get 
Fant  on  their  side,  to  rout  me  in  the  suit,  and  I  put  him  in 
with  the  rest." 

"  Are  not  some  of  the  names  of  the  defendants  used  as  mere 
blinds  ? " 

Colonel  M'Comb  :  "  Yes.  Rowland,  Pohl,  and  several  others 
are  of  no  note  in  the  Credit  Mobilier." 

"  Who  got  the  charter  for  the  Credit  Mobilier  ?  " 

"  George  Francis  Train  got  it  for  Durant,  who  paid  him 
150,000  for  it." 


!1 


228  CREDIT  MOBILIER. 

"  Why  do  the  Ames  party  dislike  Durant  ?  " 

Colonel  M'Comb :  "They  were  jealous  of  him,  and  have 
been  slandering  him  for  several  years,  saying  that  he  is  dis- 
honest ;  that  he  made  away  with  bonds,  earnings,  etc.  At  one 
time,  I  was  induced  to  believe  these  things ;  but  I  found  Du- 
rant had  more  brains  and  more  honesty  than  their  party." 

"  Is  the  testimony  of  Ames,  Alley,  and  others,  in  the  suit  of 
the  State  ot  Pennsylvania  for  taxes,  reliable  ?  "  i 

Colonel  M'Comb  :  "  No,  it  is  all  false.  They  swore  they 
made  no  dividends,  when  Ames'  letters  to  me  assert  just  the 
contrary." 

"  Colonel  M'Comb,  what  does  this  line  mean  in  the  memo- 
randa as  published :  '  Painter  (Rep.)  for  Quigley,  3,000  ? '  I 
know  who  Painter  is,  and  suppose  the  *  Rep.'  means  reporter. 
Who  is  Quigley  ?  " 

Colonel  M'Comb:  "Quigley  is  a  townsman  of  mine,  in 
Wilmington,  Del.  That  has  been  erroneously  copied  from  my 
memoranda  in  the  Sun.  The  reporter  who  took  it  down  for 
that  paper  must  have  been  nervous,  and  he  has  made  several 
mistakes.  The  names  of  Painter  and  Quigley  belong  to  an- 
other memorandum.  They  are  interested  with  me  in  the  canal 
property  between  Washington  and  Alexandria,  a  piece  of  prop- 
erty owned  and  controlled  by  myself,  Ames,  Quigley,  and  some 
others.  The  figures  3,000  at  the  end  of  each  name  do  not 
signify  shares  in  the  Credit  Mobilier,  but  dollars'  worth 
of  stock.  If  you  look  at  the  published  memoranda  you 
will  see  that  no  word  occurs  after  these  figures.  It  is 
true  that  f  3,000,  at  the  rate  of  profit  obtained  by  the  stock- 
holders, would  come  to  about  118,000.  Therefore,  the  825,000 
worth  of  stock  which  Cakes  Ames  says  he  held  as  trustee  for 
the  Congressmen  named  would  be  worth  many  times  its  face. 
I  held  my  suit  for  this  stock  in  the  Credit  Mobilier  to  be  far 
above  $300,000.  That  represents,  as  near  as  may  be,  tlie 
whole  of  the  divided  sum,  provided  Ames  paid  it  to  them,  set 
down  in  that  memorandum  to  the  Congressmen  implicated.  I 
feel  distressed  at  the  publicity  given  to  this  thing,  on  account 


CREDIT  MOBILIER.  229 

of  their  reputations,  and  the  annoyance  it  gives  to  these  gentle- 
men ;  but  I  have  done  all  in  my  power  to  get  what  is  due  me 
without  taking  this  step." 

"Will  you  give  me  an  order  upon  your  counsel,  S.  G.  Thomp- 
son, to  look  at  the  testimony  taken  before  the  Commissioner, 
A.  W.  Harris?" 

Colonel  M'Comb:  "  I  will,  if  you  get  a  similar  or^er,  or  the 
consent  of  Robert  C.  McMurtrie,  the  counsel  for  the  other 
side.  But  I  do  not  want  to  be  a  party  to  any  political  designs 
which  may  be  based  upon  the  testimony,  and  my  position  as 
plaintiff  is  too  delicate  to  take  the  advance  in  throwing  that 
testimony  open  to  the  reporters.  The  fact  is,  Mr.  McMurtrie, 
defendant's  counsel,  is  now  in  possession  of  all  the  testimony  ; 
he  borrowed  it  some  time  ago,  and  keeps  it  under  the  excuse 
of  wishing  to  read  it  carefully." 

"  AVhere  is  Oakes  Ames  ?" 

Colonel  M'Comb:  "He  is  coming  to  this  city  to-morrow. 
If  he  denies  those  letters,  I  shall  feel  myself  at  liberty  to  let 
you  see  them :  and,  if  you  can  get  an  authorized  denial  from 
him  that  he  wrote  them,  I  will  give  you  an  order  on  Thompson 
to  look  at  the  manuscript." 

Colonel  M'Comb  then  said :  "  What  use  do  you  propose  to 
make  of  all  this  matter  you  have  been  gathering  up  in  Phila- 
delphia and  New  York  ?" 

Correspondent;  "Print  it  all  to  satisfy  the  wholesome  inquis- 
itiveness  of  the  period,  pin  the  responsibility  where  it  belongs, 
and  let  people  unfairly  implicated  explain  their  way  out. 
The  matter  is  certainly  the  greatest  of  all  Congressional  scan- 
dals. If  Golladay,  Whittemore,  and  such  poor  shoats  are  to 
be  expelled  for  selling  West  Point  Cadetships  for  a  few  hun- 
dred dollars,  don't  you  think  Speakers  of  the  House,  Senators, 
and  such  magnates  ought  to  be  brought  to  the  bar  of  public 
opinion  for  abetting  a  swindle  like  the  Credit  Mobilier,  pushing 
private  mortgage  ahead  of  the  Government's  first  mortgage, 
and  otherwise  prcfering  the  claims  of  a  corporation  to  the  rights 
of  their  country  and  the  tax-payers  ? " 


2o0  CREDIT  MOBILIER. 

Colonel  -M'Cpmb :  "  Well,  I  have  no  responsibility  in  this 
personal  pai;t  of  the  suit ;  and  I  tell  you  now  that,  if  my  object 
was  merely  scandal,  I  could  produce  a  letter  not  yet  printed  or 
proffered  in  the  testimony,  which  would  extend  the  area  of 
implication,  draw  in  other  names  of  persons  not  suspected  of 
collusion  in  any  gainful  matter,  and  make  the  present  untortu- 
nate  disclosure  secondary  only." 

"  Has  Oakes  Ames  no  feeling  for  his  colleagues  in  Con- 
gress ?"  . 

Colonel  M'Comb :  "  No.  Selfishness  is  implanted  in  Ames 
on  the  widest  scale.  He  has  the  hide  of  a  bull.  If  he  had  the 
sentiment  of  honor  he  would  do  anything, — leave  the  country, 
— rather  than  put  the  past  services  of  his  friends  to  the  test." 

"  What  were  the  circumstances  under  which  you  took  that 
memorandum  ?     Please  repeat  it." 

Colonel  M'Comb :  "  Why,  I  took  it  from  Ames  himself,  he 
reading  from  a  memorandum  which  he  took  from  his  pocket, 
to  account  to  me  for  the  stock  he  would  not  furnish,  and,  by 
accident,  I  made  the  memorandum  at  that  moment  on  the  back 
of  one  of  Ames'  own  letters  to  me, — the  same  which  has  got  into 
the  testimony.  That  is  how  the  thing  leaked  out.  The  letter 
was  coerced  from  me  in  the  course  of  litigation,  and  being  dis- 
covered, the  memorandum  was  made  public  with  it." 

"  Then  the  weakness  of  the  evidence  is  in  the  fact  that  you 
alone  wrote  the  memorandum,  and  nobody  can  get  the  stock- 
register  to  confirm  your  memorandum.  At  the  same  time,  the 
very  incompleteness  of  this  evidence  at  law  will  be  moral  proof 
to  thousands  of  men.  It  lacks  the  lawyer's  arrangement,  but 
what  is  missing  in  evidence  carries  most  conviction." 

Colonel  M'Comb :  "  Ames  might  have  made  a  false  entry 
of  the  names  of  the  Congressmen,  or  he  might  have  dictated 
entries  of  names  not  on  the  register.  I  had  no  suspicion  of 
such  possibilities  at  the  time.  We  were  on  fairly  amicable 
terms,  members  of  the  same  Company,  and  he  read  straight 
on,  giving  me  time  to  copy  the  list." 

*'  It  seems  to  me,  Colonel,  that  you  are  employing  a  formid- 


CREDIT   MOBILIER. 


231 


able  array  of  counsel  for  a  very  doubtful  consequence.  What 
do  Ames,  Allen,  Dillon  &  Co.  care  for  the  Credit  Mobilier  char- 
ter now,  having  worn  it  out,  and  having  no  responsibility  within 
the  State  of  Pennsylvania  longer  ?  The  Cr(^dit  Mobilier  has 
about  wound  up,  has  it  not  ?" 

Colonel  M'Comb:  "  No.  It  is  still  worth  three  millions  of 
dollars  at  least,  and  its  charter  is  worth  preserving." 

"  Are  you  still  a  stock-holder?" 

Colonel  M'Comb :  "  Yes.  I  possess  six  [or  sixty,  corre- 
spondent not  certain]  shares,  and  my  suit  is  not  to  get  in,  but 
to  get  my  proportion  of  what  I  have  paid  for." 

"  Is  Oakes  Ames  worth  anything  ?" 

Colonel  M'Comb  :     "  Yes.     Three  or  four  millions." 

While  a  part  of  the  above  conversation  was  taking  place,  two 
gentlemen  sat  beside  Colonel  M'Comb  and  our  correspondent, 
viz  :  H.  D.  Newcomb,  President  of  the  Louisville  and  Nashville 
Eailroad,  and  Josiah  Bardwell,  an  owner  of  Cr(^dit  Mobilier 
stock. 

Colonel  Newcomb  informed  me  that  Mr.  Bardwell  invested 
$50,000  in  the  Credit  Mobilier,  and  that  his  net  drawings 
thereon  had  amounted  to  $360,000,  Mr.  Bardwell  is  a  stout, 
brown- whiskered  gentleman,  and  he  said,  pleasantly : 

"  Gath,  you  ought  to  go  and  talk  to  Oakes  Ames  to-morrow. 
He  will  talk  freely.     He  don't  care." 

"  How  much  do  you  infer,"  said  Mr.  Bardwell  to  '  our  corre- 
spondent,' ''  were  the  proceeds  or  profits  of  Credit  Mobilier 
investments  ?" 

Applying  the  information  derived  only  a  moment  before  on 
the  other  side,  our  correspondent  answered : 

"  About  six  or  seven  for  one, — say  on  an  investment  of  $5},- 
000,  about  $360,00a  net!" 

This  shot  seemed  to  tickle  Mr.  Bardwell,  and  he  laughed  in 
a  serio-comic  way. 

"  W^ell,"  said  he,"  provided  that  is  true,  we  took  a  good  deal 
of  risk." 

"  Yes,"  said  another,"  I  wish  I  had  some  of  that  risk.     The 


232  CREDIT   MCBILIER. 

stock  and  the  dividends  I  don't  mind,  but  I  am  quite  put  out 
that  I  didn't  get  some  of  the  risk." 

Here  there  was  a  general  laugh. 

Colonel  Newcomb  said,  direccly, — no  other  person  at  the 
moment  present : 

"  What  surprises  me  most  is,  that  the  newspaper  profession, 
with  all  its  acuteness,  did  not  discover  this  matter  long  ago, — 
four  years  ago, — it  being  an  old  subject  of  conversation  amongst 
railway  men  and  operators.  You  will  observe  that  Speaker 
Blaine  denies  that  he  ever  received  or  owned  any  stock  or 
money  in  the  Credit  Mobilier.  My  understanding  is,  that  no 
stock  was  given,  but  that  the  dividends  were  in  the  bonds  given 
to  the  Railroad  Company,  which  in  turn  became  the  dividends, 
etc.,  of  the  Credit  Mobilier.  A  man  set  down  as  having  an 
interest  would  merely  be  presented  with  bonds  at  periods  when 
dividends  came  to  be  declared,  and  some  of  the  earliest  of  such 
dividends  would  clear  off  his  stock  of  indebtedness." 

It  was  now  near  midnight,  and  the  company  separated. 
Colonel  M'Comb  said,  before  going  to  bed : 

"  I  have  talked  more  to-night  on  this  subject  than  I  have  yet 
allowed  myself  to  do.  Three  New  York  newspaper  men  have 
been  to  see  me  to-day,  and  I  have  refused  to  speak,  being  already 
annoyed  at  the  publication  of  my  garbled  parts  of  evidence, 
and  at  the  appearance  of  Ames'  letters.  There,  for  example, 
is  the  letter  of  Crane,  the  Secretary  of  the  Credit  Mobilier, 
which  is  omitted.  I  did  not  want  anything  published,  and  the 
omissions  and  the  publications  are  equally  annoying.  I  have 
told  you  this  to  satisfy  you  that  I  am  merely  going  straight  on 
to  get  my  dues  in  a  business  suit,  and  am  no  politician  at  any 
time.  I  shall  vote  for  General  Grant,  and  could  never  vote  for 
Greeley  anyway." 

"Why?" 

"He  is  too  much  of  a  whirligig.      Good-night." 

Wondering  if  Greeley  were  more  of  a  whirligig  than  tu. 
Credit  Mobilier,  which  began  with  Duff  Green,  passed  along  to 
George  Francis  Train,  fell  as  a  family  chattel  into  the  hands  of 


CREDIT  MOBILIER.  233 

Tom  Durant,  was  gobbled  up  by  Oakes  Ames,  Sidney  Dil- 
lon, and  John  B.  Alley,  and  has  finally  become  a  bombshell  in 
Congress,  exploding  the  caucus,  our  correspondent  also  retired 
to  his  room,  made  his  notes,  and  composed  himself  to  rest, 
congratulating  himself  that  he  had  deserved  well  of  his  coun- 
try. 

The  above  was  the  first  letter  published  confirmatory  of  the 
disclosure  from  a  principal. 


OHAPTEE  XYI. 


CREDIT   MOBILIER   BROUGHT   TO   BAY, 

Perhaps  nothing  in  American  history  will  bear  comparison 
with  the  Credit  Mobilier  as  a  drama  in  which  all  the  human 
emotions  have  been  played  upon  from  farce  to  tragedy.  The 
subject  is  of  the  grandest  area,  and  the  conspiracy  within  it 
close  and  criminal  as  in  any  scheme  of  treason  aimed  at  a 
great  empire.     Look  at  the  dates,  and  see  what  they  imply  : 

In  the  Summer  of  1862,  a  Pacific  Railroad  was  empowered 
by  Congress.  In  1869  the  road  was  built,  and  cars  were 
running  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco.  In  1872,  ten  years 
after  the  Government  exercised  its  generosity,  the  chief 
builders  and  capitalists  of  the  enterprise  appeared  like  common 
criminals  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion,  and  the  highest  heads 
in  Congress  were  dragged  down  for  complicity  in  their  crime. 
Two  separate  investigations  were  held  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  one  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Two  mem- 
bers of  Congress,  Oakes  Ames  and  James  Brooks,  and  one 
Senator,  James  W.  Patterson,  were  reported  back  for  expul- 
sion. But  public  opinion  was  so  far  from  satisfied,  and 
Congress  so  wholly  demoralized  by  apprehensions  of  other 
exposures,  that  neither  House  took  definite  action,  and  Con- 
gress adjourned  under  a  cloud,  and  the  entire  country,  which 
had  just  passed  through  a  presidential  election,  was  overcast 
with  doubt,  shame,  and  indignation.  The  two  members 
marked   for  expulsion  died  in  little  more  than  two  months 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  235 

and  within  a  few  days  of  each  other.  It  is  true  that  one  of 
them  was  a  sufferer  from  bodily  disease,  and  the  other  was  an 
old  man,  but  the  pubhq  superstition  connected  in  their  obitu- 
ary the  tragedy  and  its  context,  and  not  all  the  funeral  pomp 
could  clear  tlie  stigma  from  the  dead,  nor  obtain  a  revocation 
of  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  score  or  more  men  who  had 
been  members  and  Senators,  and  had  abused  the  magnificent 
dowry  of  the  nation.  Almost  while  the  funeral  services  of 
Brooks  and  Ames  were  being  said,  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment was  filing  complaint  and  bill  in  equity  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  May  26,  1873,  in  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United 
States,  against  "  The  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company  and 
others,"  of  which  a  newspaper  despatch  said : 

"  This  marks  the  opening  of  the  great  legal  struggle  between 
the  Government  on  one  side  and  two  of  the  greatest  and  most 
extraordinary  corporations  ever  created  on  the  oth^r,  and  will, 
beyond  doubt,  occupy  some  of  the  attention  of  the  Courts  for 
ten,  perhaps  twenty,  years  to  come.  It  is,  unquestionably,  the 
most  gigantic  litigation  on  record,  and  the  printed  complaint 
and  exhibits  appended  thereto,  twenty-five  in  number,  make  a 
book  of  134  printed  pages. 

"  The  total  sum  to  be  accounted  for  will,  if  a  verdict  be 
given  against  all  the  defendants,  be  probably  not  less  than 
$25,000,000,  and  interests  in  the  litigation  may  be  transmitted, 
in  all  likelihood,  to  the  second  generations  of  the  posterity  of 
some  of  the  parties  defendant." 

An  examination  of  this  bill  shows  that  it  makes  defendants 
not  only  about  one  hundred  rich  individuals  but  also  the 
following  corporations :  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Com- 
pany, a  corporation  created  by  acts  of  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  whose  principal  office  for  business  is  located 
at  Boston,  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  and  its  President, 
Horace  F.  Clark,  of  the  city,  county  and  State  of  New 
York ;  the  Credit  Mobilier  of  America,  a  corporation  cre- 
ated by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
located  in  Philadelphia,  in  said    State,   and  its  President, 


236  THE   DEFENDANTS   IN   THE   SUIT. 

Sidney  Dillon,  ot  the  city,  county,  and  State  of  New  York ; 
the  Wyoming  Coal  and  Mining  Company,  a  corporation  organ- 
ized under  the  general  statutes  of  the  State  of  Nebraska ;  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  Telegraph  Company,  a  corporation 
organized  under  the  general  statutes  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  its  President,  John  Duff,  of  Boston,  in  the  State 
of  Massachusetts  ;  the  Pullman  Palace  Car  Company,  a  cor- 
poration transacting  business  in  Chicago,  in  the  State  of 
Illinois,  and  its  President,  George  M.  Pullman,  of  Chicago; 
and  the  Omaha  Bridge  Transfer  Company,  a  corporation 
transacting  business  at  Omaha,  in  the  State  of  Nebraska. 

Amongst  the  individual  defendants  are  ex-Congressman 
Henry  M.  Boyer,  and  Helen  Boyer,  his  wife ;  William  Tracy, 
the  executor  of  Congressman  Brooks,  deceased ;  General  G. 
M.  Dodge,  and  Anne  M.  Dodge,  his  wife ;  the  widow  of  ex- 
Senator  Grimes ;  and  very  many  ex-Congressmen  and  hitherto 
respectable  citizens. 

The  United  States  attorneys  claim  in  one  paragraph  of  this 
bill  that  the  following  extraordinary  state  of  morals  and 
finance  prevails  in  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company : 

"  The  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company  is  insolvent.  The 
cost  of  the  railroad  and  telegraph  line  was  considerably  less 
than  one-half  the  sum  represented  by  the  aggregate  of  stock 
and  other  pretended  liabilities  of  the  company  outstanding. 
The  largest  part  of  the  stock  and  bonds  of  the  company  before 
mentioned  was  issued,  in  the  name  of  the  ">ompany,  by  its 
managers,  not  in  the  interest  of  the  company,  but  to  enrich 
themselves  in  a  manner  and  for  purposes  unauthorized  by  law. 
A  large  majority  of  the  stock  now  habitually  voted  upon  as  of 
right,  in  electing  officers  and  controlling  the  affairs  of  the 
company,  is  stock  issued  in  a  manner  not  authorized  by  law, 
and  which  was  never  paid  for,  in  cash  or  in  any  other  thing  of 
equivalent  value  to  the  company.  A  large  part  of  its  income 
is  used  habitually  in  paying  its  managers  high  interest  and 
commissions  on  loans,  and  in  paying  interest  on  bonds  issued 
unnecessarily,  without  lawful  motive  or  adequate  consideration. 


CREDIT   MODILIER.  237 

"  The  earnings  have  not  been  sufficient  to  pay  accruing 
interest  on  its  floating  debt  and  on  the  several  classes  of  bonds 
issued  by  the  company.  Ten  millions  of  dollars  of  its  income 
bonds,  so-called,  will  be  due  in  September,  1874 ;  but  no  fund 
has  been  provided  or  is  accumulating  for  either  new  ties  and 
rails  or  payment  of  said  income  bonds.  Interest  on  United 
States  bonds  issued  to  the  company  is  allowed  to  accumulate 
without  payment,  as  before  stated.  The  company  is  insolvent, 
and  obliged  to  depend  on  temporary  loans  to  save  its  ol^liga- 
tions  and  promises  from  dislionor.  Its  principal  managers 
treat  it  as  depending  on  their  personal  credit  to  save  it  from 
bankruptcy,  and  make  profit  by  loaning  it  money  for  high 
interest  and  commission." 

The  Wilson  Committee  of  Congress  showed  that  tlic  Credit 
Mobilier  conspirators  made  a':  least  twenty-four  millions  of 
money  beyond  a  liberal  profit  by  contracting  witlr  themselves, 
not  only  to  build  the  road,  but  to  rob  it  in  every  possible  man- 
ner after  it  should  go  into  operation.  The  rapacity  and  wcaltli 
of  the  conspirators,  and  the  general  demoralization  of  American 
commercial  and  political  society  at  the  time,  involved  a  whole- 
sale purchase  of  engineers,  examiners.  Congressmen,  news- 
papers, cabinet  officers,  state  governors,  and  judges.  Society 
stood  back  appalled,  unwilling,  but  compelled  to  believe  the 
disclosures,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Republican 
Government  lost  the  faith  of  many  thousand  men  and  women. 

Let  us  look  at  the  two  railway  companies  which  interlink 
midway  from  the  one  highway  to  the  Pacific. 

The  Central  Pacific  Company  at  tlie  West  End  sprung  out  of 
the  needs  of  California,  and  the  yearning  of  all  the  people  and 
capitalists  there  to  have  quick  and  reliable  connection  with  the 
bulk  of  their  countrymen  in  the  East.  The  Union  Pacific 
Road,  on  the  contrary,  did  not  aim  to  give  relief  to  a  rising 
nation  of  people,  by  affording  them  an  outlet  to  civilization, 
but  it  was  simply  a  tie  which  should  bind  the  Central  Pacific 
to  the  country  east  of  the  Missouri.  Tliis  intervening  country 
wos  Avithout  laro-e  towns,  and.  indeed,  without  any  population 


238  THE   REAL   OBJECT  OP   THE   UNION   PACIFIC. 

to  speak  of,  except  the  few  herders  of  cattle,  and  some  isolated 
band  of  miners.  The  Union  Pacific  Road,  therefore,  did  not 
promise  to  become,  in  a  short  time,  a  profitable  highway  to  its 
devisors.  It  tumbled  into  the  hands  of  certain  lobbyists  and 
Congressmen,  who  were  much  more  concerned  to  make  some- 
thing out  of  its  construction  than  to  build  it  up  into  a  property, 
and  wait,  like  the  Central  Pacific  people,  for  the  business  to 
increase,  the  country  to  fill  up,  the  mines  to  grow  profitable, 
and  the  freights  and  passenger-travel  to  yield  their  legitimate 
award.  The  Union  Pacific  Railroad  did  not  break  ground 
until  the  5th  of  November,  1865, — nearly  two  years  after  the 
Central  Pacific  had  resolutely  driven  the  spade,  and  looked  with 
courage,  almost  beyond  hope,  at  the  steep  sides  of  the  Sierra 
Nevadas.  To  build  the  Union  Pacific  Road  was  a  much  lighter 
task  than  to  lay  the  Central  Pacific.  On  the  former  lines  the 
long  level  plains  and  steppes  afforded  such  easy  accommoda- 
tions for  railway  buildei'S  that  it  is  a  matter  of  history  how 
even  six  miles  a  day  of  track  were  laid  when  the  work  had 
been  fully  undertaken.  The  Union  Pacific  Company  laid  but 
forty  miles  of  track  up  to  January,  1866  ;  but,  in  that  inter- 
val, and  after  it,  the  incorporators  of  the  road  found  out  an 
opportunity  to  make  money  more  easily  than  by  patient  pro- 
cesses. 

When  the  Credit  Mobilier,  so  called,  had  been  created,  to 
receive  the  proceeds  of  the  Government  bonds,  and  sieve  the 
same  into  the  railroad  through  the  pockets  of  the  manipula- 
tors of  the  Mobilier,  they  warmed  up,  and  were  able  to  lay  305 
miles  of  road  in  one  year,  235  in  the  next  year,  and  finally,  to 
complete  the  road,  for  the  whole  1,085  miles,  by  the  10th  of 
May,  1869.  The  Union  Pacific  Road  retains  to  the  present 
day  1,032  miles  of  road  lying  between  Ogden  and  Omaha.  It 
received  a  vast  subsidy  in  land  from  Congress,  besides  such  a 
stupendous  bonded  aid  that,  by  the  testimony  of  experts,  it  was 
able  to  lay  the  whole  line  within  the  amount  in  cash  realized 
from  the  sale  of  its  bonds,  put  a  large  fortune  in  the  hands  of 
everybody  who  belonged  to  the  Credit  Mobilier,  and  receive, 


CREDIT  MOBILIER.  239 

besides,  the  whole  of  its  land-grant,  as  a  clear  margin  of 
profit. 

The  scandals  which  accompanied  the  building  of  this  road 
are,  perhaps,  forgotten  by  many  of  the  old  generation,  and  are 
scarcely  known  to  tens  of  thousands  ot  the  new  generation 
which  has  arisen  since  the  Pacific  was  opened.  The  traveller 
over  the  liiie  at  this  day  will  observe  that,  whenever  a  rich 
piece  of  level  ground  is  attained,  the  road  begins  to  snake  around 
like  a  great  brook  which  draws  water  from  every  spring  ;  and 
sometimes  the  eye  is  bewildered  to  see  what  appears  to  be  an- 
other railroad,  parallel  with  that  on  which  he  travels  ;  but  the 
information  is  soon  afforded  that  it  is  the  same  piece  of  road 
he  had  gone  over  half  an  hour  before.  If  he  asks  why  it  should 
be  so  crooked,  the  answer  will  be  :  "  That  was  a  part  of  the  job." 
The  Union  Pacific  Company  let  out  the  building  of  the  road  to 
its  own  contractors,  under  the  name  of  the  Credit  Mobilier ;  and 
they  had  no  desire  to  make  a  short  line  where  it  was  easy  lay- 
ing track,  because  they  received  so  much  per  mile  in  bonds 
from  the  United  States,  and  whenever  they  could  build  the 
road  for  less  per  mile  than  the  bonded  aid,  they  went  winding 
round  and  round,  like  a  circle,  and  put  the  overplus  in  their 
pockets. 

"  But,"  you  will  ask,  "  was  the  Government  so  blind  that  it 
could  not  see  that  a  swindle  was  being  perpetrated  upon  it  in 
describing  three  sides  of  a  square  to  get  the  distance  of  the 
fourth  side  ?" 

"  Yes,"  will  be  the  answer  ;  "  but  the  road  will  be  ex- 
amined by  persons  selected  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Company, 
and  these  were  induced  to  report  that  everything  was  cor- 
rect." 

All  the  above  is  literally  true,  as  any  man  knows  who  has 
crossed  the  plains.  The  time  between  Omaha  and  Ogden 
could  be  greatly  decreased  had  this  railroad  been  laid  on  the 
thrifty  principle  of  a  responsible  organization  and  honest  en- 
gineering. Begun  as  a  job,  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  soon 
failed  to  be  of  interest  to  those  who  had  prostituted  the  Govern- 


210  THE   BIG    SWINDLE. 

mciit  Charity,  after  it  was  opened.  While  the  Central  Pacific 
Hoad,  of  which  it  is  the  receiver,  is  a  splendid  piece  of  proper- 
ty, with  its  stock  jealously  kept  in  the  hands  of  its  original 
conceivers,  the  Union  Pacific  has  several  times  changed  owner- 
ship, President  after  President  going  out  ;  and  the  scandal  of 
its  management  was  so  notorious  that  the  Tammany  Hall 
Judges  thought  it  would  "  come  down  "  easily  and  pay  them 
black-mail.  So  Judge  Barnard  put  it  into  the  hands  ot  a 
receiver  in  New  York,  and  had  its  safe  broken  open  with  cold- 
chisels  and  gun-powder. 

At  Saratoga,  during  the  trial  of  Judge  Barnard,  Horace  F. 
Clark,  an  associate  of  this  road,  was  put  upon  the  stand,  and 
asked  to  give  testimony  concerning  the  Credit  Mobilier.  He 
declined  to  say  anything  about  it,  asserting  that  all  he  knew 
was  hearsay  and  not  evidence,  and  refused  to  bring  the  books 
of  the  corporation,  which  are  now  in  the  city  of  Boston,  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  State  of  New  York.  Hence  the  mystery 
involving  the  Credit  Mobilier, — which  we  may  call,  for  short, 
the  ring  of  Union  Pacific  Directors  and  stockholders,  who  get 
the  bonds,  put  the  road  down  cheaply,  and  filcli  the  remainder 
of  the  aid  Government  gives  them, — and  the  difficulty  of  get- 
ting at  any  of  the  facts,  although  the  people  know  that  one  of 
the  most  monstrous  and  impudent  swindles  ever  perpetrated 
upon  a  magnanimous  Nation  was  the  act  of  that  Union  Direct- 
ory, of  which  Oliver  Ames  was  President  and  Oakes  Ames  the 
Congressional  Agent.  It  will  ever  be  a  subject  of  scandal  to 
an  inquiring  posterity  that  Schuyler  Colfax,  as  well  as  his 
successor,  James  G.  Blaine,  kept  at  the  head  of  the  Pacific 
Railroad  Committee  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  this 
Oakes  Ames.  He  was  a  large,  heavy-set,  secretive  shovel- 
maker,  from  the  Taunton  District  of  Massachusetts,  who  kept 
his  pocket  full  of  free  passes  over  this  railroad,  and  dealt  them 
out  judiciously  to  whoever  might  be  able  to  do  him  either  good 
or  injury.  A  member  of  Congress,  and  as  such  obligated  t6 
protect  tlie  State  in  its  property  in  the  Pacific  Railways,  Oakes 
Ames  was,  all  the  while,  a  member  of  the  Credit  Mobilier,  and 


^,      .  CREDIT  MOBILIER.  241 

a  brother  of  the  President  of  the  road.  He  never  made  a  pro- 
position concerning  this  road  which  did  not  become  the  law  or 
the  observance  by  act  of  Congress.  He  carried  through  Con- 
gress a  scandalous  proposition  by  which  the  Government 
abandoned  its  first  mortgage  of  this  highway,  and  allowed  the 
private  mortgage  bonds  of  the  Railroad  Company  to  take  pre- 
cedence, and  crowded  the  Government  with  a  second  mort- 
gage. He  was  able,  with  the  help  of  the  most  eminent  men  in 
the  Republican  party,  to  collect  from  the  United  States  the 
gross  sum  for  carrying  the  mails  over  this  road,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  he  never  paid  the  interest  on  the  Government 
bonds  as  it  accrued.  In  short,  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad 
first  begged  a  loan  from  the  United  States  of  from  sixteen  to 
sixty  thousand  dollars  a  mile,  and  then  robbed  it  of  the  inter- 
est on  the  loan,  forced  the  loan  itself  back  to  a  contingent 
place,  and  pasted  it  over  with  another,  and  a  private  loan  of 
its  own,  and  then  swindled  it  out  of  the  whole  gross  sums  for 
the  mail  service. 

During  the  time  that  these  robberies  were  taking  place,  and 
the  Credit  Mobilier  could  be  daily  heard  to  chuckle  as  it  re- 
ceived Governmeut  bonds,  a  great  deal  of  wild  and  florid  gam- 
mon was  poured  out  upon  the  country.  Our  attention  was 
called  to  the  giant  pines  of  California,  whenever  we  proposed 
to  look  down  to  the  ties,  and  see  where  our  money  had  gone. 
If  we  presumed  to  ask  when  the  road,  under  good  manage- 
ment, might  pay  for  itself,  we  were  directed  to  spend  no  time 
upon  such  mercenary  amusement,  but  to  look,  instead,  on  the 
splendor  of  Yo  Semite  Valley,  and  the  wonderful  apricots  in 
the  regjon  of  Los  Angeles.  There  was  so  much  drumming, 
and  fifing,  and  fuss,  and  palaver,  kept  up  about  this  glorious 
achievement  (which  was  tlie  easiest  achievement  ever  under- 
taken by  civilized  man,  when  he  had  the  money  in  his  hands 
to  do  it  with),  that  the  imagination  of  the  country  was  carried 
away  from  the  solid  business  which  belonged  to  the  undertak- 
ing, and  now,  after  many  years  of  mystery,  a  private  law-suit 
11 


242  WHAT   OAKES   AMES'    LETTERS   SHOW. 

in   a   secondary   city  proves  that  murder  must  out  at  last, 
and  that  what  is  so  ugly  can  never  be  wholly  concealed. 

The  Credit  Mobilier,  it  appears,  built  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad,  or  1,038 J  miles,  which  was  a  little 
more  than  the  Union  Pacific  now  retains.  It  really  built  1,035 
miles,  but  sold  to  the  Central  Pacific  subsequently  all  that  por- 
tion of  the  road  between  Ogden  and  Promontory,  and  now 
owns  less,  by  6J-  miles  of  rails,  than  the  Credit  Mobilier,  its 
stool-pigeon,  built.  For  this  1,038 J  miles  of  road  the  Credit 
Mobilier  got  United  States  bonds,  amounting  to  more  than 
827,250,000,  besides  12,080,000  acres  of  land.  Upon  this  land 
were  issued  7  per  cent,  land-grant  bonds,  to  the  amount  of 
810,400,000.  The  capital  stock  of  the  Credit  Mobiher,  mean- 
time, was  37,000  shares,  at  a  par  value  of  8100.  Exactly  how 
designing  and  successful  this  transaction  was,  has  come  out  in 
the  letter  of  Oakes  Ames  to  H.  S.  M'Comb.  According  to 
Ames'  own  admission  in  this  letter,  the  Credit  Mobilier  paid 
less  than  825,700  a  mile  to  build  the  highway,  or^  in  gross, 
825,900,000.  The  letters  from  Oakes  Ames  are  valid  and  un- 
doubted ;  they  are  written  by  him,  and  appear  in  his  hand- 
writing ;  they  were  indited  in  the  due  course  of  businesSj.  and 
are  now  about  four  years  and  a  half  old.  They  show  the 
secrecy,  the  Jesuitry,  and  the  ingratitude  of  the  corporation 
which  could  receive  such  an  amount  of  help,  and  abuse  the 
Government's  confidence  ;  and  they  show,  more  than  all,  that 
it  was  a  member  of  Congress  who  wrote  these  letters,  and  he 
implicated,  in  all  secrecy  and  seriousness,  men  whom  the 
country  has  delighted  to  honor. 

The  country  owes  nothing  perhaps  to  Henry  S.  M'Comb,  who 
was  one  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  men,  for  having  been  the  means 
of  showing  up  their,  system  of  plunder.  It  seems  that  M'Comb 
was  a  fellow  capitalist  with  Thomas  C.  Durant  and  joined  Du- 
r ant's  faction  when  the  Mobilier  people  got  to  cheating  each 
other.  Durant  had  been  a  physician  in  the  western  part  of 
Massachusetts,  but  he  had  too  much  worldly  enterprise  for 
professional  life,  and  took  to  railroad  contracting.     He  observed 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  243 

the  drift  of  opinion  to  be  in  favor  of  a  railway  to  the  Pacific, 
and  put  himself  forward  in  the  project,  but  being  a  reckless 
speculator,  without  conscience  toward  his  creditors,  his  country, 
his  friends,  or  his  friend's   wife,  he  had  no  sooner  become 
Yice-President   of  the  Union  Pacific  railroad,  than  he  sent 
George  Francis  Train  to  Pennsylvania    to  buy  him   one   of 
those  floating  charters  by  which  our  modern  legislatures  em- 
power gamblers  to  cheat  mankind.     The  name  of  Credit  Mo- 
bilier  was  derived  from  a  stock  gambling  corporation  which 
existed  in  Paris  during  the  reign  of  Napoleon  III.     Had  the 
Pennsylvania  legislature  possessed  anybody  of  general  reading, 
and  been  particular  about  honesty,  it  would  have  suspected  a 
corporation  with  such  a  title.     Durant  got  his  charter  at  such 
a  time  as  to  show  that  he  meditated  a  swindle  from  the  begin- 
ning.    He  gathered  around  him  a  set  of  loose  law-defying  con- 
tractors, men  of  means  and  vigor  and  associated  these  with 
him  in  the  Credit  Mobilier.     Then  the  company  moved  to  New 
York  so  as  to  get  out  of  observation  in  Pennsylvania,   and 
when  one  of  Durant's  clerks  by  the  name  of  Hoxie,  a  man 
without  means,  had  been  given  by  the  Union  Pacific  Company  a 
contract  to  build  246  miles  of  road,  Hoxie  transferred  the 
same  to  Durant,  and  Durant  to  the  Credit  Mobilier.     At  this 
time  the  whole  Union  Pacific  Company  had  paid  up  but  $218,- 
000.     The  object  of  getting  the  Credit  Mobilier  charter  was  to 
protect  themselves  individually  as  partners  for  debts.     As  the 
Credit  Mobilier,  they  turned  around  and  bought  the  $218,000 
worth  of  stock  aforesaid.     The  Union  Pacific  stock  was  then 
watered  one  thousand  per  cent.,  and  thus  the  Credit  Mobilier 
ate  up  the  Union  Pacific  Company.     The  Hoxie  contract   at 
$50,000  per  mile  was  now  fulfilled  in  a  cheap  way,  at  a  cost  of 
$27,500  per  mile,  including  equipment.     About  350  miles  of 
road  were  built  in  this  way,  of  which  58  miles  alone  netted  the 
Crddit  Mobilier  more  than  a  million  and  a  third  dollars  "  with- 
out any  consideration  whatever."     August  16, 1867,  the  Oakes 
Ames  contract  was  made  for  66.7  miles,  at  from  $42,000  to 
,000  a  mile,  the  Government  meantime  paying  $96,000,  in 


244  ACTUAL  COST  OP  THE  ROAD. 

all  about  $48,000,000.  The  Credit  Mobilier  now  lianded  over 
to  Ames  the  absolute  disposition  of  the  Union  Pacific  railroad. 
Ames  associated  with  himself  an  ex-Congressman  from  Mass- 
achusetts named  John  B.  Alley,  and  Messrs.  Bushnell,  Dillon, 
M'Comb,  Durant  and  Bates,  the  core  of  the  Credit  Mobilier. 
The  chief  Engineer,  Granville  M.  Dodge,  was  bribed  with  one 
hundred  shares  of  Credit  MobiUer  stock,  placed  in  the  name  of  j 
his  wife.  The  profit  under  this  contract  was  nearly  ^30,000,- 
000,  in  stock,  cash,  bonds,  <fec.  In  the  same  way  the  Davis  con- 
tract was  made,  on  the  same  terms  as  the  Ames  contract,  for 
125  miles.  The  committee  of  investigation,  headed  by  Hon. 
Jeremiah  M.  Wilson,  reported  on  the  above  contract  as  follows: 

Your  committee  present  the  following  summary  of  cost  of  this  road  to 
the  railroad  company  and  to  the  contractors,  as  appears  by  the  books  : 

Cost  to  railroad  company. 

Hoxie  contract, $12,974,416.24 

Ames  contract,  - 57,140,102.94 

Davis  contract,      -- 23,431,768.10 

Total, 93,546,287.28 

Cost  to  contractors. 

Hoxie  contract, $7,806,183.33 

Ames  contract,  _         -         -         _  27,285,141.99 

Davis  contract,  15,629,633.62 

50,720,958.94 

42,825,328.34 
To  this  should  be  added   amount   paid  Credit  Mobilier  on 

account  of  fifty-eight  miles,        -----  1,104,000.00  ^ 

Total  profit  on  construction,  -        -        -        -    43,925,328.34 

I 
It  was  while  Oakes  Ames  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  these, 
contracts,  that  he  was  a  member  of  Congress,  and  to  smooth 
his  path  there,  he  gave  stock  in  the  Credit  Mobilier  Company 
in  small  sums  to  a  large  number  of  members,  and  outside 
people.  His  method  was  to  hold  the  stock  in  their  names, 
privately,  but  himself  trustee,  and  known  as  such  within  \hQ 
Mobilier  Company.     It  was  this  very  stock  which  led  to  a  law- 


CREDIT   MOBILTER.  245 

suit  in  the  courts  of  Pennsylvania,  by  Henry  S.  M'Comb. 
Ames  and  his  cHque  had  fallen  out  with  Durant,  and  his 
clique  and  the  latter  were  discontented  to  see  so  much  plunder 
falling  to  their  opponents.  M'Comb  affected  to  believe  that 
Ames  had  never  paid  the  Cr<^dit  Mobilier  in  question  to 
Congressmen,  or  to  put  the  proceeds  in  his  own  pocket.  He 
therefore  laid  damages  at  a  very  considerable  amount,  and 
found  it  necessary  to  sustain  his  case,  that  he  should  put  in 
the  Transcript  some  private  letters  which  Ames  had  written  to 
him.     These  letters  involved  the  reputation  of  Congressmen. 

It  appears  that  Ames,  being  of  a  dull  unsensitive  nature, 
paid  little  heed  to  the  consequences  of  such  publications,  and 
his  coterie,  of  which  the  head  was  John  B.  Alley,  supported 
him.  An  attempt  was  made,  however,  to  get  the  originals  out 
of  M' Comb's  hands,  and  make  way  with  them.  It  appears 
that  with  rare  delicacy  M'Comb  had  merely  put  in  copies  and 
omitted  altogether  the  memorandum  of  names  of  Congressmen. 

Here  is  the  letter  of  Ames'  counsel: 

M'Comb  vs.  C.  Mobilier, 

Philadelphia,  May  21,  1872. 

Dear  Sir  :  On  Thursday,  the  23d,  you  have  appointed  to  close  the 
cross-examination  of  Mr.  M'Comb,  and  to  proceed  with  your  evidence. 

Allow  me  to  remind  you  of  promises  made  by  your  client  at  the  prior 
meetings,  many  months  since,  to  furnish  or  produce  the  papers  or  doc- 
uments from  copies  of  which  he  spoke,  or  referred  to,  or  memoranda 
taken  from  them.  Some  at  least  were  to  be  sent  me  next  day ;  none  have 
been  sent.  He  stated  the  other  day  that  they  had  been  withheld  for  a  pur- 
pose. I  must  ask  that  you  will  require  him  to  produce  at  the  meeting  on 
Thursday,  if  you  desire  me  to  cross-examine,  the  following  : 

Letters  from  Oakes  Ames  in  reference  to  the  distribution  of  345  shared 
as  gifts  to  members  of  Congress  : 

His  books  showing  the  original  entries  and  dividends,  or  sums,  stated  U 
have  been  received  as  dividends — April,  18G6  ;  July,  1866;  September; 
1866;  December,  1866;  and  January,  1868. 

I  would  also  like  to  have  a  copy  of  Mr.  Ames'  letter,  April  13,1867 
(exhibit  No.  2,  A.  W.  N.) 

Very  truly 

(Signed)  R.  C.  McMurtrie. 

To  Jas.  E.  Gowen,  Esq. 


246  THE  INVESTIGATION  MADE  PUBLIC. 

But  M'Comb  made  McMurtrie  take  copies  in  his  presence, 
and  copy  one  letter  at  a  time.  The  manner  of  McMurtrie  when 
he  saw  such  letters  did  exist,  was  that  ot  a  man  deceived  by 
his  own  clients. 

Ames  said  to  M'Comb,  when  asked  it  he  did  not  value  the 
reputation  of  his  friends : 

"  I  don't  care  whether  you  put  the  letters  in  as  evidence  or 
not.     Everybody  knows  that  Congressmen  are  bribed." 

After  these  letters  became  evidence,  it  was  inevitable  that 
they  should  appear  in  print.  They  did  appear  in  some  myste- 
rious way  and  made  great  scandal.  After  a  long  and  most 
awkward  silence,  suspicious  denials  of  their  validity  appeared 
from  Ames  and  other  parties.  Ames  argued  that  he  had  never 
sold  or  presented  a  share  of  stock  to  any  member  of  Congress, 
— a  piece  of  unblushing  falsehood,  as  he  has  himself  shown 
under  oath.  The  denials  of  the  others  were  made  under  a 
mistaken  idea  that  the  thing  would  blow  over  after  the  political 
campaign,  and  that  meantime  it  would  pass  as  mere  vitupera- 
tion of  the  canvass.  The  names  of  Grant  and  Wilson,  it  was 
thought,  would  prove  all-protecting  ; 

Ulysses  1  name  that  charms  our  fears, 

That  bids  our  sorrows  cease  ; 
'Tis  music  in  the  sinner's  ears, 

*Tis  life,  and  health,  and  peace  ! 

After  the  election  was  done  and  Congress  met,  the  word  Mo- 
hilier  was  raised  again,  and  the  quickened  consciences  of  some 
of  the  members  showed  in  their  troubled  talk,  and  walk,  and 
countenances.  A  Democrat  was  now  known  to  be  in  the  case, 
and  the  Poland  Investigating  Committee  met  with  closed  doors. 
The  news  leaked  through  the  cracks  and  keyholes.  A  savage 
speech  made  by  James  Brooks  against  M'Comb  on  the  floor 
contemporaneously  with  a  screed  of  evidence  from  John  B. 
Alley  under  oath  in  the  darkened  Committee-room,  only  whetted 
the  public  interest.  A  cry  arose  for  "  Open  doors  !  Less  white' 
wash  and  more  fumigation  !" 
,     Then  the  sick  men  who  groped  their  way  about  the  Capital 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  2-47 

City  would  liave  been  the  pitied  of  men  and  angels  but  for  that 
speech  ot  Brooks'  against  the  Government  witness,  which  had 
closed  the  gates  ot  mercy.  The  fatal  truth,  half  told,  came 
forth  at  last  from  the  lips  of  Oakes  Ames.  That  shovel-iron 
statue  spoke  like  the  sire  of  Fredolin,  cursing  his  posterity. 

It  may  be  asked  why  James  Brooks  was  put  forward  by  the 
Credit  Mobilier  people  to  make  a  speech  against  McComb.  The 
fact  was  that  Brooks,  under  the  guise  ot  an  aristocratic  and 
strictly  honorable  member  of  the  opposition,  had  been  robbing 
the  Union  Pacific  Company  all  the  while.  He  had  secured 
from  Andrew  Johnson  as  a  Democrat  the  appointment  of  Gov- 
ernment Director  of  the  Union  Pacific  railroad  and  in  that 
position  was  not  allowed  to  be  a  stockholder,  or  interested  in 
any  way  in  the  corporation.  But  with  a  vicious  and  dishonest 
nature  he  used  his  power  all  the  more  to  extort  from  the  con- 
federates stock  in  both  the  Union  Pacific  and  Crddit  Mobilier 
Companies,  and  the  very  bonds  of  the  United  States  which  he 
was  appointed  to  protect.  Public  guilt  was  never  less  undoubt- 
edly shown  in  any  government.  With  his  honors,  riches,  and 
age  all  to  protect,  it  may  be  imagined  that  Brooks  was  more 
apprehensive  than  any  living  man  of  the  consequences  of  an 
investigation.  He  was  so  nervous  about  the  matter  that  he 
betook  himself  to  the  old  newspaper  mode  of  silencing  an 
enemy  by  ruining  his  character.  This  he  attempted  to  do  be- 
fore Congress  came  together  by  concerted  attacks  upon  M'- 
Comb,  comparing  him  to  Jim  Fisk  and  Judge  Barnard,  When 
the  Investigating  Committee  met  with  closed  doors  the  guilty 
man  heard  almost  immediately  that  his  villainy  had  been  put 
in  evidence.  He  could  not  stand  and  wait ;  for  he  knew  that 
now  his  only  escape  was  in  loud  and  brawling  defiance.  He 
claimed,  therefore,  the  privilege  of  a  personal  explanation,  and 
delivered  a  personal  attack  upon  M'Comb  too  ingenious  to  be 
honest  and  too  cowardly  not  to  provoke  response.  M' Comb's 
friends  at  once  demanded  the  opening  of  the  doors  in  equity  to 
a  witness  so  grossly,  and  as  they  claimed  so  unjustly,  maligned 
by  a  member  pleading  his  privileges.     There  was  an  agonizing 


248  AMES  REFUSES  TO  SHIELD  THE  MEMBERS. 

time  in  Congress  when  the  proposition  was  made  to  open  the 
doors  and  men  of  both  parties  struggled  hard  to  keep  them 
close.  But  a  paralysis  had  fallen  upon  the  body.  They  saw 
the  full  galleries  and  knew  that  all  the  country  was  looking  in, 
and  although  the  Committee  itself  protested  that  a  secret  ex- 
amination would  be  the  best,  it  was  ordained  that  the  public 
should  know  all  about  the  matter. 

Induced  to  believe  that  Mr.  Oakes  Ames  would  shield  him- 
self and  them,  several  of  the  members  sent  him  word  or  inti- 
mated in  person  that  they  wished  him  to  exonerate  them  as  far 
as  possible.  For  some  days  he  seemed  to  desire  to  do  so,  but 
being  an  old  man,  of  a  bluff,  ingenuous  nature,  he  finally  grew 
ashamed  of  duplicity  and  enraged  at  the  evident  disposition  to 
make  him  a  principal  and  a  perjurer  besides.  He  and  Mr. 
Alley  therefore  changed  face  upon  their  dupes  and  friends 
and  corrected  their  statements.  Mr.  Colfax,  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States,  and  Mr.  Patterson,  U.  S.  Senator  from 
New  Hampshire,  were  ruined  in  the  sequel  after  an  agonizing 
effort  to  perplex  or  compound  Mr.  Ames.  Mr.  Kelley,  Mr. 
Schofield,  Mr.  Garfield,  Mr.  Allison,  Mr.  James  Wilson,  com- 
monly called  "  The  Singed  Cat "  of  Iowa,  and  one  or  two 
others  were  scathed  a  good  deal  by  the  evidence.  The  Com- 
mittee reported  in  favor  of  the  expulsion  of  Brooks  and  Ames 
from  the  House,  and  the  Senate  followed  up  the  report  by  enter- 
taining another  investigation,  whereby  Senator  Patterson  was 
named  for  expulsion.  These  proceedings  did  not  satisfy  the 
public  and  an  effort  was  made  in  the  House  to  censure  Messrs. 
Kelley,  Garfield,  Samuel  Hooper,  and  even  Speaker  Blaine. 
Against  the  latter,  Mr.  Job  Stevenson  of  Ohio  hurled  a  bitter 
piece  of  invective,  and  Mr.  Speer  of  Pennsylvania  debated  the 
complicity  of  two  of  the  others.  The  whole  subject  was  dis- 
posed of  by  censuring  Ames  and  Brooks,  both  of  whom  died 
of  tlie  shock  and  other  ills  in  little  above  two  months.  Mr. 
Patterson  left  the  Senate  by  the  expiration  of  his  term,  seeking 
in  vain  afterward  to  have  his  transaction  and  character  vindi- 
cated.    Mr.  Colfax  went  out  of  office  morally  ruined  and  men- 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  249 

tally  wrecked.  He  had  maintained  a  semblance  of  purity  and 
frankness  for  so  many  years  of  general  consideration  that  the 
knowledge  of  his  corruptibility  and  his  painful  exhibition  of 
falsehood  under  oath  gave  the  country  a  blow. 

Some  scenes  in  this  investigation  may  be  sketched  rapidly 
just  as  they  were  taken  in  my  note  book  at  the  time. 

The  Committee-room  where  the  half-dozen  gentlemen  who 
had  been  appointed  to  seek  out  the  why  and  wherefore  of  the 
railroad  bribery  met  for  one  hour  or  more  every  forenoon  is  at 
the  foot  of  a  long  flight  of  dark  stairs  which  lead  from  the  Ro- 
tunda to  the  floor  usually  called  the  crypt,  or  cellar.  At  the 
foot  of  these,  stairs,  a  lighted  corridor,  whose  cheerful  appear- 
ance does  not  deprive  it  of  a  certain  dungeon-like  look, — pro- 
bably the  effect  of  the  consciousness  of  the  heavy  weight  sup- 
ported above,  and  of  the  broad  and  solid  walls,  and  piers,  and 
window-sills  in  view, — leads  to  the  Committee-room. 

"Within  the  Committee-room  the  atmosphere  and  air  imme- 
diately change  for  the  better.  A  good  grate-fire  burns  under 
a  symmetrical,  old-fashioned  mantel  of  white  marble,  above 
which  is  a  mirror  of  the  largest  proportions.  Opposite  the 
mirror  is  a  book-case  filled  with  law-calf-bindings  ;  and  down 
the  floor,  lengthwise  between  the  fire  and  books,  runs  a  baize 
table  surrounded  with  arm-chairs.  Nearest  the  door  half-a- 
dozen  newspaper-writers  are  seated  around  the  end  of  this 
table. 

At  the  other  end  is  the  Chairman  of  the  investigation, 
Judge  Luke  Poland,  of  Vermont.  Merrick  and  Niblack,  the 
two  Democrats,  sit  to  the  left  hand  of  Judge  Poland,  and  on 
his  right  is  Mr.  McCrary,  of  Iowa.  These  seem  to  be  the 
chief  members  of  the  Committee  who  are  paying  any  attention 
to  the  proceedings.  McCrary,  Merrick,  and  Poland  do  all  the 
questioning. 

Next  to  Niblack  sits  Henry  S.  M'Comb,  and  sometimes 
Judge  Black  and  Lawyer  Smithers  occupy  a  place  at  his  side. 
Mr.  Smith,  the  official  reporter,  sits  on  the  opposite  side.     Next 


250  JUDGE  POLAND. 

to  McCrary,  facing  M'Comb,  are  the  two  inseparable  compan- 
ions, Ames  and  Alley,  the  Massachusetts  Dromios. 

Around  the  chamber  are  half-a-dozen  or  dozen  reporters  and 
idlers.  The  Court  proceeds  in  the  most  informal,  but  in  the 
quietest  way,  and  progress  is  made  slowly. 

Judge  Poland  looks  like  a  French  Marquis.  He  is  a  tall, 
aristocratic-looking  old  gentleman,  with  full  white  hair,  and 
full  white  side-whiskers  combed  forward.  His  nose  is  straight 
and  long,  and  his  profile  handsome ;  but,  when  he  turns  his 
full  face,  he  seems  to  carry  a  mouth  full  of  tobacco,  and  speaks 
with  a  sense  of  apprehension  that  some  of  it  may  spill.  His 
method  is  courteous  nearly  to  a  fault,  and  slow  to  irritation ; 
but,  as  there  is  nothing  of  the  demagogue  or  sensationalist 
about  him  and  as  he  is  what  he  appears  to  be,  a  kind  and  gen- 
erous old  gentleman,  all  look  with  confidence  to  his  return  of 
the  facts  in  their  spirit.  Alley  began  by  talking  down  every- 
body, and  was  interrupted  at  no  time,  except  when  he  was 
slavering  Ames  all  over  with  praises,  when  Niblack  said : 

"  Mr.  Alley,  how  many  monuments  do  you  want  to  have 
erected  to^Mr.  Ames  ?'* 

Persons  coming  into  the  Committee-room  for  the  first  time 
are  wont  to  say  : 

"  Who  is  that  fine-looking  man  across  the  table  ?  " 

"  Henry  S.  M'Comb  !  " 

"  That  M'Comb  !  Why,  I  expected,  from  what  Brooks  said, 
to  see  a  monster." 

Yes,  a  man  in  the  o'er  ripe  prime  of  life,  alert,  rosy,  cor- 
dial, perceptive,  and  so  unusually  handsome  as  to  imply  a  social 
importance  chiefly,  whereas  there  is  an  engine  at  work  all  the 
while  within  the  man,  and  half-a-dozen  different  fly-wheels.  Not 
a  fully  educated  man,  he  compensates  for  it  by  native  graces, 
and  the  acquaintance  since  boyhood  with  people  of  culture  at 
home,  and  men  of  power  throughout  the  country.  In  the  social, 
intellectual,  and  material  scale,  M'Comb  is  the  superior  of  any- 
body who  has  lost  time  seeking  to  impeach  him. 

Oakes  Ames  is  a  very  large  man,  of  the  type  of  a  Yorkshire 


CREDIT   MOBiLIER.  251 

manufacturer,  gnarled,  spectacled,  witli  great,  bent  shoulders, 
a  slow  walk,  and  prodigious  limbs  and  feet.  He  will  probably 
weigh  280  pounds,  and  he  looks  to  be  6  feet  2  or  3.  He  has 
strong,  coarse,  brownish  hair,  and  bristly  beard  around  the 
long,  sternwheeled  shaft  of  his  jaws.  His  forehead  is  low,  and 
the  nose  seems  to  be  half  ot  the  face.  The  eyes  behind  the 
spectacles  are  small, '  and  of  a  slow,  searching  look.  Ames 
came  to  Congress  with  the  soul  of  a  commercial  traveler,  and, 
if  expelled  from  it,  would  feel  no  particular  inconvenience  or 
loss  of  self-esteem.  The  shovel  which  his  trip-hammer  beats 
into  shape  is  scarcely  harder,  and,  as  the  man  grows  old,  he 
rusts,  but  is  too  rugged  to  decay.  A  monument  to  Oakes 
Ames  ought  to  be  made  of  scrap-iron,  and  John  B.  Alley  would 
be  the  solitary  mourner  over  it,  and,  unless  watched,  he  would 
peddle  away  the  monument  piece-meal. 

Ames  made  small  bones  of  telling  the  most  of  what  he  re- 
membered about  Congressmen,  and,  but  for  Alley,  he  would 
probably  have  remembered  considerably  more. 

Alley  sat  by  his  side  all  the  while,  lifting  or  lowering  his 
brows  suggestively,  as  Ames  helplessly  looked  around  at  him 
for  counsel.  He  was  thirteen  years  the  junior  of  Ames,  who 
was  nearly  70  years  of  age. 

Alley  was  a  shoemaker  in  boyhood,  and  he  is  now  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  best  house  in  Lynn.  He  is  proud  of  his  money, 
and  holds  to  it  with  the  desperation  of  a  cannibal  husbanding 
his  last  corpse.  He  is  a  short,  demure,  white-headed  man,  and 
has  an  endless  tongue,  which  testifies  all  manner  of  hearsay, 
and  covers  time  with  space,  to  the  exclusion  of  information, 
and  to  the  prejudice  of  more  modest  and  less  doubtful  evidence./ 
\  Alley  has  enormously  profited  by  Ames's  contracts,  and  he 
appears  in  Ames's  letters  as  the  incorrigible  opponent  to  every 
dividend  to  outsiders.  He  was  the  chief  adviser  to  Ames's 
course  toward  M'Comb,  and  he  is  really  on  the  spot  at  present 
as  the  principal  and  counsel  of  Ames.  He  may  say,  with  Sir 
Giles  Overreach  2 


252  JOHN   B.   ALLEY. 

**  In  being  out  of  office,  I  am  out  of  danger ; 

Where,  if  I  were  a  Justice,  besides  the  trouble, 

I  might,  or  out  of  wilfulness  or  error, 

Run  myself  finely  into  a  premunire, 

And  so  become  a  prey  to  the  informer. 

No,  I'll  have  none  of  it ;  'tis  enough  I  keep 

Greedy  at  my  devotion.     So  he  serve 

My  purposes,  let  him  hang,  or  damn,  I  care  not ! 

Friendship  is  but  a  word,  I  must  have  all  men 

Sellers,  and  I  the  only  purchaser  1 " 

We  have  no  remark  to  make  upon  Senator  Patterson — ^rvno 
is  a  good  sort  of  commonplace  man — described  by  Senator  Nye 
as  "  a  little  college  professor,"  except  to  remark  that  New- 
Hampshire  is  the  jobbingest  State  in  the  Union,  and  this  city 
is  overrun  with  its  spawn.  They  are  claim  agents,  *'  counsel- 
lors," strikers,  land  rats,  and  water  rats. 

At  the  latter  part  of  the  week  the  meek-faced  Boyer  of  the 
town  of  Norristown,  where  Hartranft  hails  from,  might  have 
been  seen  moving  around  the  hotels.  He  and  Brooks  belonged 
together  to  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Comjnittee,  and  both 
are  implicated,  Boyer  as  trustee,  and  mayhap  thereby  hangs  a 
tale. 

Does  the  Democratic  party  wonder  why  it  possesses  no  con- 
fidence ?  Here  are  a  Democratic  editor  at  the  metropolis  and 
a  Pennsylvania  Democrat,  both  Congressmen,  tied  up  in  na- 
tional securities,  and  of  course  the  intimidated  creatures  of  the 
Administration  side.  During  the  last  campaign,  when  the 
Greeley  journals  were  pushing  the  Credit  Mobilier  scandal. 
Brooks  was  running  around  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  nightly 
saying  "  M' Comb's  character  is  bad  on  the  street !  "  He  kept 
up  this  senile  speech,  and  alleged  that  the  Credit  Mobilier  talk 
was  not  righteous  ammunition  for  the  canvass,  thereby  doing 
his  part  to  cripple  the  candidates.  Greeley  is  in  his  grave, 
but  Brooks  lives.  What  a  commentary  is  this  on  the  value  of 
life ! 

A  fat  man,  square  everywhere  below  the  head  and  outside 
of  the  heart,  and  named  Bushnell,  came  before  the  committee 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  253 

last  week  to  say  that  his  children's  children  would  honor  him 
for  building  the  Pacific  railway.  The  correspondent  had  no 
difficulty  in  putting  this  person  down  as  one  of  the  "  stalls  " 
for  Ames  and  Alley. 

Unless  we  are  incorrectly  posted,  this  very  person  gave  his 
check  for  two  hundred  shares  Credit  Mobilier  ($20,000)  on  a 
bank  where  he  had  no  funds,  and  he  palavered  the  check  along, 
saying  he  would  attend  to  it,  arrange  it,  &c.,  until  he  had 
actually  collected  all  the  stock,  bonds,  and  cash  dividends  for 
two  years,  just  as  if  the  check  had  been  paid.  The  reason  was 
that  he  was  necessary  to  Ames,  Alley,  and  Dillon.  Moreover, 
as  gossip  in  the  committee-room  says,  $112,000  worth  of  Gov- 
ernment certificates  and  $400,000  worth  of  first  mortgage 
bonds,  (partly  charged  to  one  Shaw,  according  to  the  notable 
book-keeping  of  the  Credit  Mobilier,)  which  were  traced  into 
Bushnell's  hands  years  ago,  are  yet  unaccounted  for  by  him. 
This  man,  nevertheless,  says  that  Congressmen  ought  to  have 
'moral  pluck  and  admit  their  Credit  Mobilier,  and  he  says  that 
$50,000  worth  of  his  stock  in  the  Credit  Mobilier  was  recently 
thrown  out  of  bank  on  account  of  the  present  investigation. 
Which  bank  ?     Tlie  same  he  gave  the  $20,000  check  upon  ? 

Bushnell  struck  us  as  a  blower.  When  we  heard  him  talk 
we  wondered  whether  his  monument — they  all  expect  monu- 
ments and  "  children's  children" — ^had  not  better  be  constructed 
on  the  pneumatic  principle,  of  wind. 

For  the  half  dozen  or  eight  members  of  Congress  who,  in  a 
moment  of  weakness  or  temptation,  accepted  this  Credit  Mobi- 
lier stock  from  Oakes  Ames,  there  would  be  no  severe  expres- 
sions from  anybody  except  for  their  precipitate  denials.  Mr. 
Schofield  merits  no  sympathy  on  the  ground  of  meekness  ;  for 
during  the  campaign  he  was  stigmatizing  this  and  other  charges 
as  a  "  Greeley  lie."  Mr.  Colfax's  situation  is  most  pitiable  of 
all ;  for  he  denied  outright  that  he  had  any  stock,  denounced 
correspondents  for  merely  intimating  as  much,  and  yet,  by  the 
testimony,  seems  to  have  done  the  sinister  service  for  the 


254  VERDICTS   IN   THE   SEVERAL   CASES. 

Credit  Mobilier  of  "  blocking  the  game "  of  an  investigation 
and  inciting  even  the  pernicious  Ames  to  exclaim : 

"  In  Colfax's  case  don't  you  think  the  investment  paid  ?" 

And  then  that  idiotic  explanation  read  before  the  committee 
by  Mr.  Colfax  ;  that  assumption  of  childishness  ;  that  touch  of 
the  immaculate  conception  when  he  still  professed  not  to  know 
what  the  Mobilier  was ;  that  shallow  beseeching  of  somebody 
to  cross-examine  him !  The  man  disarms  us  by  his  littleness. 
Go,  Schuyler  Colfax  and  let  us  forget  thee !  This  stage  of  pub- 
lic life  is  too  large  for  such  puppetry  as  thine. 

Mr.  Dawes  has  a  robust  explanation,  which  acquits  him  of 
anything  mean  except  his  evasive  denial.  Mr.  Blaine  was  too 
sagacious  to  sell  out  his  prospects  so  cheaply.  Of  two  or  three 
other  members,  Ames  took  advantage  and  turned  their  poverty 
into  a  public  temptation  nearly  disastrous  to  their  reputations. 
Mr.  Kelley  is  one  of  these  men ;  but  in  view  of  Ames'  testimony 
that  he  is  still  the  latter's  debtor  for  $1,000,  how  unnecessary 
was  this  explanation  of  Mr.  Kelley : 

"  I  have  never  owned  a  share  of  stock  in  the  Credit  Mobilier 
of  America,  nor  has  any  member  of  my  family,  either  directly 
or  by  the  intervention  of  a  trustee  or  agent." 

Well  did  Hamlet  say  that  playing  on  such  stops  was  easy  as 
lying. 

In  General  Garfield's  case  Mr.  Ames  seems  to  have  taken 
advantage  of  a  man  in  distress,  and  to  have  secured  a  loan  by 
an  entangling  investment.  As  soon  as  Garfield  discovered  the 
cheat  he  returned  the  money. 

Mr.  James  Wilson  of  Iowa,  who  has  been  doing  a  good  deal 
of  something  in  this  city  since  he  left  Congress,  and  who  was 
so  touchy  as  to  his  honor  that  he  made  a  great  speech  once  in 
the  House,  saying  that  he  had  never  received  any  imputation 
but  one,  and  who  proved  his  peace  of  mind  by  persecuting 
newspaper  writers,  this  friend  of  Billy  McGarrahan,  has  been 
the  subject  of  inquiry  in  this  case,  and  we  suggest  that  he  now 
accept  one  of  those  three  Cabinet  positions  which  the  President 
offered  him.  He  would  seem  to  need  some  such  extension  of 
confidence ! 


CREDIT   MOBIUER.  255 

Mr.  Allison  has  made  himself  mysterious  by  a  denial.  When 
Peter  denies  his  Credit  Mobilier  the  cock  crows  thrice  for  divi- 
dends ! 

Henry  Wilson  has  been  the  victim  of  a  wedding  gift.  At 
the  fine  old  gentleman's  silver  wedding,  the  anniversary  of 
honorable  domestic  years,  the  Ames  gang  strode  in  and  put 
Credit  Mobilier  stock  on  the  plate.  To  defame  a  well-spent  life 
by  such  a  testimonial  proves  the  brutality  of  this  crowd.  Why 
did  they  not  put  their  hands  in  their  pockets  and  subscribe  any 
honest  currency  which  they  might  have  possessed  ?  As  it  was, 
they  might  as  well  have  given  another  man's  gold  watch  to  the 
old  couple. 

The  youthful  Painter,  who  has  been  hanging  on  the  verge 
of  the  newspaper  profession  for  ten  years  or  more,  affecting  to 
know  how  to  spell,  and  proving  that  he  affects  it  only  to  job, 
appears  in  this  case  as  a  striker  for  Credit  Mobilier  stock.  He 
not  only  got  twenty  shares,  but,  says  Ames,  "  was  in  a  high 
dudgeon  that  he  did  not  get  fifty."  He  had  failed  to  strike 
Purant  for  this  amount,  and  appears  to  have  got  it  out  of  Ames 
only  by  proffering  his  malignant  services  to  defame  M'Comb. 

The  three  persons  who  appear  to  constitute  the  central  direct- 
ory of  the  mortal  remains  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  are  Messrs. 
Ames,  Alley,  and  Brooks.  Mr.  Brooks'  speech  in  Congress 
against  M'Comb  has  reacted  upon  himself.  We  leave  him  to 
deal  with  the  evidence  which  has  developed  since  his  speech, 
and  if  it  be  brought  home  to  him  that,  as  a  Government 
director,  he  took  interest  in  the  Union  Pacific  railroad,  and  as 
a  Democrat  demanded  stock  to  "  take  care  of  the  Democratic 
side,"  he  should  receive  that  generosity  he  meted  out  to 
M'Comb.  On  cowardice  and  cruelty  sympathy  is  thrown 
away ! 

Mr.  Alley  has  labored  very  hard  here  to  prove  himself  a  par- 
simonious toady  and  an  example  of  grasping  contemptibility. 
To  look  at  him  and  hear  him  talk  is  a  surfeit.  He  has  volun- 
tarily put  himself  beside  the  principal  in  this  matter,  and  his 
screed  upon  M'Comb  was  that  of  a  vulgar  slanderer  whose  ig- 
norance could  not  estimate  the  effect  of  a  coarse  action. 


256  THE  CASE   OP   BINGHAM. 

As  to  Mi-.  Bingham,  who  met  the  charge  with  that  old-fash- 
ioned shaking  of  the  head  and  jabber  about  a  Ucentious  press, 
reading  meanwhile  a  piece  of  blunt  acknowledgment,  he  fell 
over  his  own  ingenuity  directly  ;  for  he  wished  it  made  a  part 
of  the  record  that  he  had  introduced  a  bill  in  Congress  obligat- 
ing the  Company  to  protect  the  national  interest.  A  corre- 
spondent promptly  forwarded  a  question  as  to  whether  the  said 
security  for  the  Government's  interest  was  not  appended  to 
Bingham's  bill  in  the  Senate  and  returned  to  the  House  in  the 
form  of  an  amendment  ?  Mr.  B.  slunk  a  perceptible  slink  and 
confessed  the  soft  impeachment. 

Mr.  Bingham  then  qualified  his  rhetorical  allusion  to  "a 
licentious  press,"  by  saying  that  he  meant  by  it  only  the  editor, 
who  attributed  to  him  $20,000  worth  of  profits  in  the  Credit 
Mobilier. 

Let  us  see. 

The  dividends  in  Credit  Mobilier  were  eleven  hundred  per 
cent,  prior  to  1870.  If  Mr.  Bingham  got  but  $6,500  he  ought 
to  bring  Oakes  Ames  to  account,  for  the  man  Bushnell  says 
that  any  member  who  had  the  stock  promised  to  him  ought  to 
demand  it. 

Go,  John  A.  Bingham,  and  take  Bushnell's  principals  at  their 
word.  They  sold  you  for  a  Chinaman  and  gave  you  but  one- 
third  of  what  you  were  entitled  to. 

We  looked  at  Bingham  giving  his  testimony  before  that  meek 
and  courteous  chairman,  old  Judge  Poland,  and  recalled  the 
time  when  Bingham  himself,  conducting  the  McGarrahan  in- 
vestigation, tyrannized  over  witnesses  in  the  interest  of  the 
Micks  and  O'Shilleys.  Poland,  mavourneen !  Thou  art  nothing 
less  than  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school. 

In  our  judgment  Messrs.  Dawes  and  Garfield  came  off  vic- 
toriously in  this  matter.  The  miserable  Ames,  who  seems  to 
have  been  a  public  money  lender,  took  advantage  of  Garfield 
when  in  need  of  money  to  tie  him  up  in  Credit  Mobilier.  Of 
Mr.  Dawes  he  took  advantage  when  the  latter  wanted  to  buy 
some  Cedar  Rapids  stock. 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  257 

Ames  richly  deserved  expulsion,  and  without  it  all  this  investi- 
gation would  have  been  for  naught.  The  following  railw  ay  jobs  he 
conducted  successfully  through  Congress,  and  some  of  them 
were  accompanied  with  better  endowments  than  the  Union  Pa- 
cific :  namely,  Sioux  City,  Iowa  Falls  and  Sioux  City,  Cedar 
Rapids,  Union  Pacific,  and  finally  that  magnificently  endowed 
Eastern  Division  of  The  Union  Pacific.  He  came  to  Congress 
to  job  in  railways,  and  gave  all  his  time  to  it. 

Mr.  Glenni  W.  Scofield's  statement  has  a  measley  and  hardly 
convalescent  look.  When  a  man  says  he  "  does  not  remember 
receiving  any  dividends  "  and  does  not  remember  what  his  atti- 
tude was  on  legislation  affecting  the  Union  Pacific  railroad,  we 
regard  him  in  the  words  of  the  same  poet  we  have  quoted,  as 
follows : 

"  With  sadness  that  is  calm,  not  gloom, 

We  learn  to  think  upon  him ; 
With  meekness  that  is  gratefulness 

On  Oakes  Ames  who  hath  won  him. 
Who  suffered  once  those  dividends 

To  public  shame  to  blind  him, 
But  gently  led  the  blind  along 

Where  Jerry  Black  could  find  him." 

The  ugly  fact  has  come  out,  that  Jacob  Harlan  received 
810,000  from  Thomas  C.  Durant,  that  chief  of  sinners  and 
gallants,  to  elect  himself  Senator  from  Iowa.  And  mark ! 
Harlan  had  been  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  during  the  time 
that  the  Union  Pacific  wanted  work  done  in  that  department. 
If  we  are  to  believe  the  gossip  on  the  street,  Mr.  Harlan  got 
from  this  interest  not  merely  $10,000,  but  $30,000. 

But  where  is  the  Rev.  Dr.  Newman,  who  wrote  the  circular 
letter  and  had  it  lithographed  with  the  caption  :  "Dear  Sir  and 
Brother,"  and  asked  the  suffrages  and  lobby  devotion  of  all 
the  Methodist  preachers  in  Iowa  for  Harlan  ?  Did  he  get  none 
of  the  Credit  Mobilier,  or  was  his  portion  passed  through  his 
countenance  and  melted  to  brass  to  swell  the  cadence  of  the 
chimes  ?  If  we  were  a  Senator  we  would  hoist  the  reverend 
lobbyists,  at  any  rate,  out  of  our  wing. 


258  THE   CASE   OF   JAMES   BROOKS. 

James  Bracks  would  have  received  plenty  of  sympathy  had 
he  respected  another  man's  character.  When  a  man  plays  it 
fine  he  must  have  some  of  the  naivete  of  an  artist  to  give 
dignity  to  his  misses.  Mr.  Brooks  has  changed  his  flag-ship 
two  or  three  times  during  the  action.  Once  we  heard  him 
appeal  to  the  Deity  in  a  rather  blasphemous  way  to  say  that 
he  had  never  had  a  share's  worth  of  interest  in  the  Credit 
Mobilier  or  Union  Pacific. 

On  the  whole  we  sum  him  up  to  be  a  parvenu^  who  has 
made  most  of  his  money  in  this  sort  of  way,  and  has  dissipated 
his  nerve.  His  political  positions  have  generally  been  those 
of  a  pompous  dough-face,  extenuating  the  rebellion,  while 
filching  from  the  Union.  He  subscribed  -$10,000  to  the  Union 
Pacific  Railroad,  and  has  drawn  $300,000  from  it,  including 
his  commission  as  the  salesman  of  the  Pacific  Railroad 
telegraph  line.  He  is  reputed  to  exist  now  as  a  director  in 
the  Union  Pacific  by  the  use  of  the  shares  he  received  as 
dividends  on  Credit  Mobilier.  He  opposed  the  Union  Pacific 
road  until  he  was  "  let  in,"  when  he  became  its  oilman,  and 
greased  the  Democratic  side,  or  professed  to  do  so. 

It  was  an  awful  picture  to  see  this  sickly  man  examining 
Tom  Durant  as  to  the  high  patriotic  necessity  of  the  Union 
Pacific  Railroad,  while  feebly  requesting  old  Judge  Poland  to 
lug  in  Jeems,  Lazarus,  and  Fagin  to  prove  M'Comb  not  a 
credible  w^itness.  Death  and  reputation  seemed  at  work  in 
our  friend,  and  Durant  so  sympathized  with  him  that  he  said : 

"  By  Jupiter !  I  must  let  up  on  that  man.  I  don't  want  any 
male  corpses  laid  at  my  door-post  untimely." 

Durant  did  let  up,  covered  Brooks'  tracks  as  much  as  he 
dared,  and  proved  himself  the  magnanimous  materialistic 
Bohemian  that  he  is. 

No  two  confessions  were  alike.  Henry  Wilson  sentimental- 
ized his  error  over  by  expressing  his  notion  of  the  vileness  of 
imputations.  He  called  his  Maker  and  himself  face  to  face  in 
his  closet,  and  attempted  to  butter  Oakes  Ames  over  with 
humble  pfaise. 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  259 

Henry  Wilson,  beware  of  the  fate  of  Schuyler  Colfax ! 
Hypocrisy  in  the  Vice-President  is  a  garment  of  gauze.  The 
oft  iteration  of  po^»erty  as  an  excuse  for  simony  becomes  at 
last  disgusting.  This  country  calls  on  no  man  to  be  an  ass 
in  order  to  serve  it  with  spirit ;  and  to  perceive  and  apprehend 
a  case  of  bribery  bottomed  on  public  robbery  is  the  duty  of  a 
Senator. 

When  a  man  has  been  ten  or  fifteen  years  in  continuous 
public  life,  and  still  ajffects  not  to  know  what  the  Credit 
Mobilier  is,  we  set  him  down  as  a  fraud.  If  he  does  not  know, 
away  with  him  for  stupidity ;  and  if  he  does  not  know  any 
more,  while  mysteriously  receiving  the  dividends,  we  classify 
him  with  Cowper,  of  whom  the  poet  said  : 

"  That  while  in  darkness  he  remained. 

Unconscious  of  the  guiding, 
All  things  provided  came  without 

The  sweet  sense  of  providing." 

Poverty  is  not  a  plea  in  rebuttal  of  a  direct  charge  of  pecula- 
tion, for  it  may  be  the  concomitant  of  profligacy.  To  talk 
about  the  deceased  members  of  one's  family  in  a  whining  way, 
and  offer  to  sell  out  one's  goods  for  thirty-five  hundred  dollars, 
seem  to  us  to  be  overrating  the  credulities  of  men.  Mr.  Wilson 
bought  that  Credit  Mobilier  stock  in  January,  1868,  and  parted 
with  it  at  the  close  of  the  same  year.  Now,  between  these 
dates  above,  four  hundred  per  cent,  dividends  were  declared. 

Mr.  Wilson  says  that  if  ten  thousand  dollars  were  due  him, 
he  would  not  touch  a  cent,  of  it.  Where  does  this  leave 
Messrs.  Bingham  and  Hooper  ?  Ah  !  Messieurs  in  Congress, 
"  thus  conscience  doth  make  cowards  of  us  all.'* 

We  heard  Wm.  D.  Kelley's  long-winded  harangue,  delivered 
with  all  tlie  resonance  of  an  unending  tune  in  a  negro  meeting- 
house, with  compassion  not  wholly  unmixed  with  wonder. 

A  person  who  pretends  to  be  the  great  statesman  of  the 
period,  and  to  know  whys  and  wherefores,  from  the  Sutro 
tunnel  up  to  sublimated  potash,  and  to  be  still  so  stupid  that 
he  did  not  know  the  difference  between  a  loan  and  &  purchase, 


260  MR.    KELLY'S   "MEMORY." 

is  a  candidate  for  the  asylum.  Where  is  the  shame  of  these 
people,  to  sit  in  the  presence  of  such  satirists  upon  human 
nature  as  Ames  and  Alley,  and  tell  these  forgetful  reminis- 
cences ?  Mr.  Kelley  makes  a  great  point  that  two  thousand 
dollars  could  not  buy  him.  We  do  not  know  about  that !  The 
picture  he  drew  to  the  point  of  satiety  about  his  renewals, 
protests,  mortgages,  etc.,  did  not  reduce  the  timeliness  of  any 
two  thousand  dollars.  He  certainly  made  himself  appear 
a  sufficiently  impecunious  victim  of  Oakes  Ames.  Said  Mr. 
Kelley :  "  For  largely  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  I  have 
advocated  the  Pacific  Railway." 

Let  us  see. 

We  acquired  California  in  184T,  twenty-five  years  ago.  Did 
Mr.  Kelley  start  the  project  of  a  Pacific  road  before  we  had 
any  population  or  right  on  that  coast  ?  These  touches  of 
rhetorical  egotism  are  entirely  unmeaning.  Mr.  Kelley  is 
neither  a  saint  or  a  hero,  and  we  prefer  to  let  him  slip  with 
the  apology  that  "  Oakes  Ames  did  tempt  me  and  I  did  eat." 

While  Congressmen  wriggle  and  writhe  and  say  that  it  was 
noble-minded  to  own  Credit  Mobilier  stock,  read  the  letters  of 
Oakes  Ames !  He  expresses  his  opinion  of  these  men,  and 
shows  why  he  wanted  them  in  the  contracting  company.  With 
the  stock  in  their  pockets  they  were  his.  And  here  is  a  sin- 
gular passage  in  one  of  his  letters  : 

"  In  view  of  Washburne's  move  to  investigate  us  I  go  for 
one  bond  dividend  in  full.  I  understand  that  the  opposition 
to  it  comes  from  John  B.  Alley." 

Now,  why  did  Alley  object  ?  Because  he  had  parted  with 
his  stock! 

He  had  sold  250  shares  Credit  Mobilier  at  $200  per  share  to 
Peter  Butler  of  Boston,  December  5, 1867.  He  had  expected 
to  pick  up  more  stock  for  less  money,  but  he  found  in  New 
York  that  nobody  would  sell.  He  therefore  availed  himself  of 
his  position  as  trustee  to  resist  a  dividend.  Durant,  knowing 
Alley's  rapacious  motive,  proposed  to  buy  him  up,  which  he 
did,  as  the  following  receipt  will  show.     Alley  thus  got  250 


CREDIT  MOBILIER.  261 

shares  of  stock,  and  of  course  he  changed  tactics  and  received 
a  dividend  : 

(Copy.) 

T.  C.  Durant  having  sold  to  me  a  call  to  take  from  him  within  ten  days 
from  this  date  two  hundred  and  fifty  shares  of  stock  of  the  Credit  Mobilier 
of  America,  in  case  I  do  not  avail  myself  of  that  privilege  I  promise  to 
return  to  said  Durant  the  memorandum  conveying  said  privilege  on  his 
return  to  me  ol'  this  paper. 

(Signed),  John  B.  Alley. 

New  York,  December  12,  1867. 

THE   MANNER   OF  RENDERING   TESTIMONY. 

Our  opinion  of  the  committee  conducting  this  investigation 
is  enhanced  by  its  behavior  during  the  last  week.  Incisive 
questions  were  proposed  by  McCrary  and  Niblack.  Judge 
Poland,  whose  error  is  slowness,  and  who  examined  these 
speculators  as  if  they  were  of  the  blood  royal,  also  addressed 
some  pertinent  inquiries  to  the  witnesses.  The  question  asked 
by  McCrary  of  Kelley  as  to  the  tone  of  the  letters  of  Oakes 
Ames,  was  of  the  sort  which  should  have  been  put  among 
these  proceedings  more  frequently.  Mr.  Merrick  has  preserved 
watchful  and  discriminating  behavior  during  all  this  investi- 
gation, which  probably  accounted  for  Bingham's  blustering 
way  of  reading  his  evidence  to  Merrick,  as  if  the  latter  had 
intentions  on  him. 

There  have  been  too  many  statements  made  in  these  pro- 
ceedings— written  statements,  not  in  the  form  of  legitimate 
testimony,  and  artfully  contrived  to  evade  admissions.  On 
some  of  these  there  has  been  no  cross-examination  whatever. 
Colonel  M'Comb  stood  up  and  answered  orally,  and  took  no 
advantage  of  the  lax  rules  of  evidence  accorded  here.  A 
flagrant  case  of  libel,  in  the  form  of  testimony,  not  Avholly 
unlike  forswearing — to  call  it  by  no  graver  name — was  that  of 
John  B.  Alley.  His  evidence  was  prepared  by  E,.  C.  McMurtrie 
of  Philadelphia,  a  lawyer  always  resident  iii  the  Quaker  City. 
Mr.  Alley  said  that  he  had  prepared  his  testimony,  and  sub- 
mitted it  to  a  distinguished  New  England  jurist,  who  had  told 


262  J.  B.  alley's  perjury. 

him  that  to  omit  a  word  or  a  line  of  it  would  be  to  his 
prejudice. 

"  Who  is  that  New  England  jurist  ?  "  was  asked  by  Judge 
Merl-ick. 

After  a  pause  Alley  replied  : 

^'  Mr.  McMurtrie." 

As  Alley  was  under  oath  when  he  said  that  his  adviser  was 
a  distinguished  New  England  jurist,  and  as  he  named  McMur- 
trie, never  a  New  Englander,  where  is  Alley's  veracity  ?  And 
four-fifths  of  the  said  testimony  was  mere  slander,  such  as 
such  a  creature  could  pour  out  on  M'Comb. 


"  Very  eloquently  said,  Mr.  Wilson ! "  remarked  Judge 
Niblack  satirically,  after  James  Wilson  had  quoted  several 
thousand  words  laudatory  of  the  Union  Pacific  road,  and  its 
construction  "  amidst  bands  of  hostile  Indians.'* 

Everybody  who  has  passed  over  the  Union  Pacific  road 
knows  that  no  Indians  are  to  be  seen,  and  that  the  construction 
is  over  gently  rising  slopes  and  acclivities  nearly  as  adaptable 
to  track-laying  as  the  level  prairies.  The  only  startling  thing 
about  the  road  is  its  crookedness,  after  reaching  the  three  hun- 
dreth  mile,  where  Durant  ceased  building  and  Ames  began. 
Tiie  new  crowd,  commencing  their  career  with  consistent  rapa- 
city, made  the  road  serpentine,  and  often  bent  it  back  on  itself 
at  level  and  fertile  places  to  get  more  land  and  more 
bonds. 

Wilson's  testimony,  as  we  understood  it,  made  him  claim  a 
great  deal  of  credit  for  saving  the  Government  half 'the  charge 
of  mail  transportation  over  the  Union  Pacific  railroad,  whereas 
the  original  bill  saved  the  Government  the  whole  charge. 

Mr.  Wilson  said  that  he  had  made  $3,000  on  his  stock,  the 
full  salary  of  a  member  of  Congress  for  about  eight  months,  or 
all  the  working  time  of  Congress  for  a  whole  year.  He  did  not 
remember  any  dividends,  and  the  manner  of  the  sale  looked 
very  awkward.     Mr.  Wilson  is  now  in  this  city,  seeking  to 


CREDIT  MOBILIER.  263 

locate  railroad  lands  about  one  hundred  miles  off  the  line  of 
the  Burlington  and  Missouri  railroad.  .  Judge  Poland  perti- 
nently asked  whether  Wilson  sold  his  stock  to  qualify  himself 
to  be  a  Government  director  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad, 
which  he  is  at  present.  This  evidence  was  full  of  solicitude 
for  the  Government  twenty  years  hence.  The  quantity  of 
singe  about  this  cat  amounts  to  a  sheepskin. 

Boyer,  the  young  chap  from  Norristown,  was  in  Congress 
just  four  years,  between  1865-69,  and  got  100  shares  of  Credit 
Mobilier  (25  being  for  Mrs.  Boyer).  He  was  on  the  Pacific 
Railroad  committee  with  Brooks,  and  at  1100  per  cent,  increase, 
his  profits  were  $110,000.  The  New  York  Nation  says  the 
profits  were  1500  per  cent.,  making,  if  true,  $150,000  profit. 
Pretty  good  for  the  young  fellow  by  the  name  of  Boyer  !  The 
Norristowners  will  have  a  little  family  legend  on  this  sudden 
wealth  for  many  generations.  This  was  mere  plunder  from 
the  Treasury  and  the  public  lands  of  the  United  States.  Yet 
"  he  had  the  right  to  do  it." 

Mr.  Colfax  came  with  counsel,  and  again  and  again  sought 
to  break  the  rampart  of  the  old  man's  confession. 

''  You've  got  the  stock,  and  you  know  it,"  said  Ames,  "  So 
what's  the  use  of  getting  around  it  ?" 

"  How  could  I  own  it  and  not  be  aware  of  it  ?"  said  Colfax, 
"  Why  didn't  people  tell  me  ?" 

"  Why,"  said  Ames,  "  nobody  ever  told  me  I  owned  niy 
own  hat  !" 

The  fact  was  that  the  Yice-President  had  taken  a  quantity 
of  the  Mobilier  Stock,  drawn  the  dividend,  and  put  them  in 
bank,  so  that  the  bank-book,  the  cheques  paid  by  the  Sergeant- 
at-Arms,  and  the  testimony  of  Oakes  Ames  made  a  complete, 
serried,  and  simultaneous  narrative.  It  was  irrefutable.  It 
broke  down  the  dignity  of  his  office.     It  was  crushing. 

To  a  young  man  concealed  on  a  committee-room  sofa,  enter 
Oakes  and  John  B.  Alley,  diligently  toadied  by  two  newspaper- 
reporters. 

Ames  grunts,  and  fills  a  whole  leather  sofa.     Alley  takes  a 


264  INTERESTING  SKETCHES. 

chair,  grunts,  and  stows  away  his  coat-tails,  to  save  them  from 
wear  and  tear. 

Alley  :  "  Oh,  dear  !  Ames,  I  knew  that  great  heart  of  yours 
would  get  you  into  trouble.  I  knew  that  great  heart  of  yours 
would  be  our  ruin.  I  told  you  that  your  generosity  was  too 
abundant,  and  your  impulses  too  noble.  Didn't  I  tell  you  so  ? 
I  want  these  gentlemen  to  hear  it  said." 

Ames  :  "  Oh,  Alley  !  I  can't  remember  everything  you 
remind  me  of.  I  believe  you  did  say  something  of  that  descrip- 
tion.'* 

Alley  :  "  You  hear  him  admit  it,  gentlemen.  Ah  !  Mr. 
Ames  has  a  foolish,  noble  heart.  He  wants  to  be  doing  good, 
even  when  it  is  dangerous  to  do  so.  That  scoundrel  M'Comb 
now  gloats  in  his  distress.  Mr.  Ames  is  a  persecuted  hero, 
and,  as  I  have  often  said  before,  deserves  a  monument  as  high 
as  the  shaft  on  Bunker  Hill." 

Here  enters  an  old  whining  Virginia  Railroad  ma». 

Old  Whiney  :  "  Meister  Ames,  I  called  to  see  if  you  wasn't 
going  to  help  me  out  with  your  subscription  to  the  Catoctin  & 
Occoquan  Railroad." 

Ames  (very  gruff)  :  "  No.  Pretty  time  to  ask  me  for  a 
subscription.  Go  to  M'Comb.  He's  got  plenty  of  money. 
He  is  ruining  me.     I  believe  he's  a  friend  of  yours  ?" 

Old  Whiney :  "  No,  Mr.  Ames,  I  don't  think  highly  of  Mr. 
M'Comb.     He  refused  to  help  me  with  my  enterprise." 

Ames  :  "  What's  that  ?  M' Comb's  a  d — d  scoundrel,  is  he  ? 
Alley,  remember  that !" 

Alley  :  "  Yes,  Mr.  Ames,  I  believed,  by  looking  at  Whiney's 
intelligent  head,  that  such  must  be  his  opinion.  He  says  that 
M'Comb  is  a  scoundrel,  gentlemen  "  (to  the  reporters). 

Ames  :  "  Whiney,  come  around  and  see  me  to-night.  May- 
be I  can  let  you  have  ten  thousand  or  so  in  your  enterprise. 
But  remember  to  remark  to  your  friends  that,  in  your  opinion, 
M'Comb  is  a  scoundrel.'* 

We  need  not  prolong  these  little  sketches.  After  a  very 
long  examination,  conducted  with  all  frankness  by  both  the 


CREDIT   MOBILIER.  265 

Poland  Commiti^ee  and  the  "Wilson  Committee,  the  former 
reported  Brooks  and  Ames  for  expulsion,  but  made  no  recom- 
mendation in  the  cases  of  the  other  members,  whose  state- 
ments they  declared  to  be  painfully  contradictory.  A  great 
debate  ensued,  lasting  more  than  two  days,  and  heard  by 
enormous  audiences  in  the  galleries  and  on  the  floors.  The 
corrupt  interest  triumphed,  and  Brooks  and  Ames  were  merely 
censured.  An  attempt  was  made  to  censure  also  Messrs. 
Hooper  of  Massachusetts,  Kelley  of  Pennsylvania,  Garfield  of 
Ohio,  Bingham  of  Ohio,  Dawes,  Butler,  and  others.  However, 
Congress,  satisfied  that  the  people  lacked  the  interest  and 
indignation  to  make  it  any  penalty,  not  only  laid  the  whole 
matter  on  the  table,  but,  as  if  to  show  that  corruption  was  the 
organic  law  of  the  land  and  of  the  American  Congressman, 
immediately  turned  about  and  increased  the  pay  of  a  member 
nearly  one-third,  and  made  the  provisions  of  the  act  apply  to 
the  Congress  just  expiring.  This  most  scandalous  action  was 
worthy  of  a  body  of  men  which  has  become  diseased  and  cor- 
rupt by  the  advantages  of  war,  and  has  wholly  lost  its  own  self- 
respect  and  the  confidence  of  the  country. 


12 


CHAPTEE  XYII. 


A   RUNNING   HISTORY   OF  IMPROVEMENTS  IN   WASHINGTON. 

June  ISth,  1800,  the  public  offices  were  opened  at  Washing- 
ton, and  Congress  assembled  there  for  the  first  time,  November 
22d.  The  laws  of  Virginia  and  Maryland  were  extended  over 
the  portions  ceded  by  those  States,  which  constituted  respec- 
tively the  counties  of  Alexandria  and  Washington,  both  of 
which  had  jurisdiction  on  the  intermediate  Potomac  river.  A 
court  of  three  judges,  with  U.  S.  Circuit  Court  powers,  was 
provided  for,  and  also  an  orphans'  court. 

February  11th,  1800,  while  a  snow  storm  raged  without,  and 
intense  partisan  activity  and  bitterness  went  on  within,  the 
House  of  Representatives  proceeded  to  ballot  for  the  successor 
of  John  Adams.  One  "member  was  carried  to  the  Hall  in  a 
litter,  and  the  ballot-box  brought  to  his  side.  Express-riders 
were  kept  in  relay  from  Washington  to  Richmond,  and  one 
Session  of  Congress  continued  for  thirty-one  hours.  Jefferson 
and  Burr  were  both  in  the  city.  On  the  thirty-sixth  ballot, 
February  17th,  Jefferson  was  elected. 

Washington    was    first   so   called    explicitly  by  the  three 
commissioners — Johnson,  Stuart,  and  Carroll — in  a  letter  ad-* 
dressed  to  Major  L'  Enfant,  from  Georgetown,  September  9thj 
1791. 

Under  the  first  board  of  commissioners — Johnson,  Carroll, 
and  Stuart — who  kept  in  oflicc  until  1794,  there  were  sold 
6,227  Washington  lots,  for  $541,384.     Tlie  next  board— Scott, 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  267 

Carroll,  and  Thornton— sold  83  lots  for  $50,217.  The  tlnrd 
board— Scott,  White,  and  Thornton— sold  101  lots  for  $41,081. 
About  $117,000  failed  to  be  collected.  In  1802  the  board  was 
dissolved,  and  the  office  of  Superintendent  created,  and 
Thomas  Monroe  appointed.  He  served  until  1817,  and  sold 
238  lots  for  $51,652.  Colonel  Samuel  Lane  succeeded  Monroe, 
and  sold  69  lots  for  $21,128. 

The  early  commissioners  held  themselves  accountable  to 
nobody  but  the  President,  and  their  returns  were  short  $126,- 
000,  as  late  as  1825.  Mr.  Monroe  was  also  reported  derelict,  and 
Lane  failed  to  satisfy  a  committee  of  the  Eighteenth  Congress. 
The  next  Superintendent  was  Joseph  Elgan,  Avho  had  better 
business  habits  than  his  predecessors,  and  under  him  both  the 
Capitol  and  President's  house  were  fully  restored.  In  1825 
there  remained  unsold  3,406  lots  belonging  to  the  United 
States. 

Under  the  commissioners  in  the  first  eleven  years  of  the 
city,  the  total  expenditures  were  $900,857,  of  which  $670,000 
were  gifts  and  cash  receipts.  The  President's  house  had  then 
cost  $240,000  and  the  Capitol  $330,000.  The  first  Treasury 
and  War  Office  cost  nearly  $90,000  ;  and  two  bridges  over  Rock 
Creek,  and  one  over  the  Tiber,  $8,000.  Two  wharves  at  Rock 
Creek,  and  on  the  Eastern  branch,  had  cost  $11,000.  The  total 
expenditure  for  salaries,  maps,  office-rent,  etc.,  had  been  $90,- 

000,  on  the  part  of  the  Commissioners. 

By  the  report  of  the  Commissioners  for  the  city,  presented 
in  the  early  months  of  Jefferson's  administration,  we  find  that 
soon  after  the  15th  of  May,  1801,  there  were  191  brick  houses 
finished,  408  wooden  houses,  and  altogether  95  brick  houses 
unfinished,  and  41  wooden  houses  unfinished. 

The  town  of  Carrollsburg  has  been  mentioned  as  preceding 
the  City  of  Washington,  on  a  part  of  the  site.  Carrollsburg  was 
situated  between  the  Eastern  branch  and  St.  James's  creek. 
Its  streets,  which  were  parallel  with  the  river,  in  the  order  of 
recession  from  it,  were  Short,  North,  Union,  Middle,  and  St. 
James  ;    crosswise,  they  were  called,  going  down-stream,  No. 

1,  2,  3,  etc.,  to  8. 


268  EARLY  PURCHASES   OF  LOTS. 

The  most  notable  purchases  of  lots  at  the  early  sales — Octo- 
ber, 1791 — December,  1794 — were : 

Tobias  Lea,  whose  purchases  amounted  to  .£572  ; 

Peter  Charles  I'Enfant,  who  paid  but  «£25  upon  his  lot,  and 
the  remaining  £198  was  settled  by  the  City  of  Washington ; 

Wm.  Augustine  "Washington,  <£225;  l 

Samuel  Blodgett,  who  bought  nearly  to  the  amount  of  £2,000  ; 

Daniel  Carroll  of  Duddington,  who  paid  .£555  for  a  shipping 
seat,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Eastern  branch ; 

David  Burns,  who  picked  up,  for  £350,  two  of  the  most 
valuable  lots  now  to  be  found,  right  opposite  the  Treasury ; 

James  Hoban,  architect  of  the  President's  house,  who  pur- 
chased to  the  amount  of  £900,  on  City  Hall  Hill,  and  Capitol 
Hill; 

Thomas  Sim  Lee,  who  bought  on  the  flats  below  the  Presi- 
dent's, at  low  rates,  and  in  small  parcels  ; 

George  Washington,  who  gave  £515  for  four  lots,  on  deep 
water.  Eastern  branch,  one  square  behind  Buzzards'  point,  and 
£400  for  two  lots  between  the  subsequent  Observatory  and 
Rock  Creek ; 

James  Greenleaf,  the  greatest  of  all  purchasers,  who  bought 
to  the  amount  of  more  than  £140,000,  or  about  6,000  lots, 
nearly  all  at  Greenleaf  point,  and  on  the  Eastern  branch  ; 

William  Thornton,  designer  of  the  Capitol,  who  paid  £200 
for  his  lot  opposite  Observatory  hill. 

Greenleaf  paid  about  £25,000  on  his  lots,  and  they  passed 
over  to  Morris  &  Nicholson  who  died  insolvent.  This  was  the 
Robert  Morris,  the  financier  of  the  Revolution. 

The  ground  where  the  U.  S.  Treasury  stands,  was  the  prop- 
erty of  Thomas  Davidson,  who  purchased  it  from  the  Commis- 
sioners, between  October,  1792,  and  January,  1794.  In  time 
it  came  again  into  the  hands  of  the  United  States. 

Where  the  Post-ofiice  building  now  stands,  was  Blodgett's 
Hotel,  where  the  Thirteenth  Congress  met  at  President  Mad- 
ison's call,  September  19,  1817. 

On  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  opposite  the  Metropolitan  Hotel, 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  269 

formerly  stood  tlie  National  Litelligeneer  ojffice  when  Cockburn 
destroyed  its  type  and  presses. 

Between  January,  1795,  and  January,  1800,  we  find  these 
notable  purchases: 

George  Washington,  who  bought  the  lot  on  Capitol  Hill, 
where  the  two  residences  belonging  to  his  widow  remained ; 

Walter  Stewart,  paying  ^17,823 ;  Solomon  Etting  and 
Thomas  Corcoran. 

Between  1800  and  1821, we  find  the  following  purchasers: 
Daniel  Carroll,  of  Duddington;  Charles  W.  Goldsborough, 
Jonathan  Elliott,  Richard  Cutts,  who  bought  nearly  $14,- 
000  worth  of  property  outlying  the  White  House  reserv- 
ation. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  cupidity  of  the  rich  propri- 
etors of  land  on  the  site  of  Washington,  but  John  Law,  a  dis- 
tinguished citizen  who  had  come  to  the  place  in  1800,  charged 
in  the  year  1820,  that  the  city  was  made  too  vast  by  the  politi- 
cians in  order  to  gratify  their  own  cupidity,  and  tempt  as  many 
farm  holders  to  give  up  half  their  property  as  possible.  "  To 
compel  this  the  principal  public  buildings  were  widely  separated ; 
no  central  points  were  designated  at  which  improvements  might 
commence,  and  gradually  diverge,  and  therefore  sufficient 
money  was  thrown  away  by  men  of  enterprise  on  remote  sit- 
uations capriciously  selected,  to  have  founded  a  very  respect- 
able town  in  the  beginning.  The  squares  were  also  injudiciously 
subdivided  into  merely  building  lots,  and  improvidently  sold 
to  get  money  for  public  buildings,  instead  of  being  parceled 
out  witli  space  for  shrubbery  and  gardens.  Hence,"  said  Mr. 
Law,  "  a  loose  and  disconnected  population  was  scattered  over 
the  city,  and  instead  of  a  flourishing  town  the  stranger  wiio 
visited  us,  saw  for  years  a  number  of  detached  villages,  having 
no  common  interest,  and  furnishing  little  mutual  support,  hardly 
sustaining  a  market,  and  divided  by  great  public  reserva- 
tions." 

William  Wirt,  who  went  to  school  at  Georgetown  during  the 
revolutionary  war,  says  that  he  always  understood  that  town 


270  WASHINGTON  IN  1796. 

had  taken  its  name  from  George  Beall,  who  lived  there,  and 
whose  daughter  married  the  chief  of  the  Magruders,  (Wirt 
says  McGregors)  fugitives  from  Culloden  to  the  borders  of  tlie 
future  American  Capital. 

A  dispassionate  English  traveler  (Weld),  who  visited  the 
site  in  1796,  relates  that  Georgetown  contained  about  250 
houses,  and  Alexandria  double  the  number,  and  that  there  were 
in  Washington  five  thousand  denizens,  including  artificers  who 
formed  by  far  the  largest  part  of  that  number.  The  greatest 
number  of  houses  at  any  one  place  was  at  Greenleaf 's  point, 
which  divided  public  opinion,  as  to  its  eligibility  for  trade,  with 
the  shores  of  the  deeper  waters  of  the  Eastern  branch.  "  Num- 
bers of  strangers,"  says  this  guarded  authority,  "  are  continually 
passing  and  repassing  through  a  place  which  affords  such  an 
extensive  field  for  speculation."  If  the  houses  already  built  had 
been  placed  together,  a  very  respectable  town  would,  have  ap- 
peared upon  the  landscape,  but  some  were  building  near  George- 
town, some  around  the  Capitol,  some  adjacent  to  the  President's 
House,  and  the  solitary  unofficial  construction  of  imposing 
appearance  was  a  brick  hotel,  ornamented  with  stone,  on  the 
site  of  the  present  General  Post-Office,  "  large,  just  roofed  in, 
and  anything  but  beautiful."  The  private  houses  were  all 
plain  buildings,  and  most  of  them  built  upon  a  speculation  and 
still  empty.  The  President's  House  had  been  "  rushed  up," 
was  nearly  done,  and  was  undoubtedly  the  handsomest  build- 
ing in  the  country,  while  the  Capitol  was  but  a  little  way  above 
its  foundations.  No  other  public  building  had  been  begun,  and 
although  the  published  regulations  required  all  houses  to  be  of 
brick  or  stone,  numbers  of  wooden  habitations  had  been  built, 
despite  the  caution  that  they  might  not  be  allowed  to  stand. 
''  Notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  done  at  the  city  and  the 
large  sums  of  money  which  have  been  expended,  there  are 
numbers  of  people  in  the  United  States  living  to  the  north  of 
the  Potomac,  particularly  in  Philadelphia,  who  are  still  very 
adverse  to  the  removal  of  tho  seat  of  government  thither  and 
are  doing  all  in  their  power  to  check  the  progress  of  the  build- 


IMPROVEMENTS  IN  WASHINGTON.  2T1 

ings  in  the  city,  and  to  prevent  the  Congress  from  meeting 
there  at  the  appointed  time." 

The  first  account  in  book  form  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
was  written  by  Washington's  Aide,  Colonel  Tobias  Leon;  the 
second  book  was  soon  afterward  published  as  far  from  Wash- 
ington as  the  city  of  Paris,  by  Dr.  Warden,  and  it  gives  some 
interesting  particulars  of  early  times  at  the  little  seat  of  re- 
publican government.  From  this  book*  we  learn  that  Mr. 
Villard,  afterwards  a  victim  of  the  Scioto  Company,  first 
established  the  military  depot  at  Greenleafs  point,  which  was 
full  of  Greenleafs  tumbling  houses;  that  Blodgett's  hotel  cost 
$36,000,  besides  the  freestone  which  the  Government  gave  him, 
and  it  was  built  by  lottery.  It  was  bought  by  the  Government 
in  1810,  for  $10,000.  Dr.  Franklin,  a  native  of  the  West  Indies, 
applied  $3,000  to  fit  it  up  for  a  Patent  Office  and  museum  ;  that 
the  Great  Falls  locks  took  100  workmen  two  years  to  build 
them;  they  are  100  feet  long,  12  broad,  and  18  deep.  The 
canal  at  the  point  is  1  mile  long,  6  feet  deep,  25  feet  wide, 
and  descends  75  feet  by  five  locks.  Relics  of  these  old  locks 
remain  (1873)  on  the  farm  of  Caleb  Gushing,  on  the  Virginia 
side  of  the  Great  Falls.  The  subsequent  Chesapeake  and  Ohio 
Canal,  is  quite  a  different  affair. 

Dr.  Warden  says  that  in  Madison's  administration,  "  Nearly 
one-half  the  population  is  of  Irish  origin.  The  laboring  class 
is  chiefly  Irish,  and  many  of  them  have  no  acquaintance  with 
the  English  language.     *     *     * 

The  President's  house  resembled  Leinster  house  in  Dub- 
lin.    *     *     * 

The  (old)  Patent  Office  was  constructed  according  to  the 
plans  of  J.  Hoban,  Esq.,  who  gained  a  prize  for  that  of  the 
President's  house.     *     *     * 

Mr.  Law,  brother  of  Lord   Ellenborougli,  had  proposed  to 

*  The  title  of  this  book  is  :  A  Chirographical  and  Statistical  description  of  the 
District  of  Columbia,  the  seat  of  the  General  Government  of  the  United  States: 
Paris  :  Smith,  Publisher,  Rue  Montmorency,  1816.  By  D.  B.  Warden,  Ex-Coa- 
Bul.    It  is  dedicated  to  Mrs.  Custis. 


272  THE   DIARIES   OF   FIRST   VISITORS. 

establish  packet-boats  to  run  between  the  Tiber  creek  and  the 
Navy  Yard  on  the  cross-town  canal.     *     *     * 

The  first  Long  bridge  cost  896,000,  and  was  opposed  by  the 
Goergetowners,  as  injurious  to  their  ferry." 

Thus  for  the  communicative  Warden  who  proceeds  with 
many  other  matters  of  interest.  He  tells  us  that  "  Benjamin 
King,  English,  was  the  first  mechanical  director  of  the  Navy 
Yard,  at  a  salary  of  $2,000  a  year,  and  that  frigates  built  there 
cost,  originally,  from  $70,000  to  $220,000."     *     *     * 

Two  academies  were  established  as  early -as  1 806  ;  of  the 
first,  Eev.  Robert  Elliot  was  the  principal — a  native  of  Ireland 
and  educated  at  Glasgow  University. 

At  Georgetown  there  was  a  female  boarding-school,  kept  by 
Madam  Du  Chevray,  a  native  of  France.     *     *     * 

The  leading  country  seats  were  Parrot's  and  Peters's.     *     * 

Toxhall's  cannon  foundry  stood  one  mile  above  Georgetown, 
the  proprietor  being  an  Englishman  whose  machinery  was  made 
by  one  Glasgow,  a  Scotchman.  It  employed  30  workmen, 
chiefly  emigrants.  "  A  cannon  was  lately  cast  at  this  foun- 
dry, throwing  a  100  pound  ball,  to  which  was  given  the  name 
of  Golumbiad." 

The  Georgetown  bridges  are  described  by  Warden  thus  :  One 
ds  of  three  arches,  and  is  135  feet  long  and  36  feet  broad ;  the 
other  is  650  yards  further  up  stream,  and  is  supported  by  piles  ; 
it  is  280  feet  long  and  18  wide.  A  daily  packet  boat  ran  be- 
tween Alexandria  and  Georgetown.  So  muddy  was  the  latter 
place,  that  strangers  described  Georgetown  as  houses  without 
streets  ;  Washington,  streets  without  houses. 

Robert  Sutcliff,  a  Quaker  merchant  of  Sheffield,  who  visited 
Washington,  in  Jefferson's  second  term,  and  published  a  book, 
describes  the  watchmen  of  Alexandria  blowing  horns  all  night 
as  they  made  their  rounds,  the  excellence  of  Gadsby's  inn,  and 
the  plentiful  Quakers  in  Virginia  and  Maryland.  He  had  for 
friends  "  T.  M.,  of  Sandy  Springs — wlio  was  employed  (1805) 
to  fill  up  the  deep  channel  of  the  Patowmack,  on  the  south 
Bide  of  Mason's  island,  in  order  to  turn  the  stream  of  that 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  273 

river  to  the  side  next  to  Georgetown,"  and  Dr.  Thornton  and 
General  Mason.     He  wrote  hopefully  of  everything. 

Francis  Ashbury  wrote,  March  12, 1815 : "  I  behold  the  ruins 
of  the  Capitol  and  the  President's  house  ;  the  Navy  Yard,  we 
burned  ourselves.  Oh,  war !  war !"  Here  are  some  of  his 
diary  notes,  previously :  "  We  crossed  over  into  Maryland  at 
Georgetown.  Surely  the  roads  are  bad  !  "  "  0,  the  clay  I  0, 
the  insolvent  roads.  Obliged  to  wait  an  hour  at  Georgetown 
ferry.  At  Montgomery  Court  House,  1  found  a  decent,  atten- 
tive congregation,  in  a  house  as  well  contrived  and  fitted  for 
religious  worship  as  any  I  have  seen"  (1801). 

Tom.  Moore,  the  poet,  at  the  age  of  25,  came  to  Washing- 
ton in  the  Summer  of  1804,  and  "  spent  near  a  week  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Merry,  the  family  of  the  English  min- 
ister. They  presented  him  at  the  levee  of  President  Jefferson, 
whom  he  found  sitting  with  General  Dearborn,  and  one  or 
two  others,  and  in  his  usually  homely  costume,  comprising 
slippers  and  Connem  ira  stockings,  in  which  Mr.  Merry  had 
been  received  by  him — much  to  that  formal  minister's  horror 
— when  waiting  upon  him  in  full  dress  to  deliver  his  credentials." 
Moore  wrote  a  great  deal  of  ridicule  for  the  few  days  he  spent 
at  the  Federal  seat,  and  addressed  his  mother  from  Baltimore, 
saying  the  roads  and  the  stage  he  took  northward  from  tlie 
Capital  were  ''  of  the  most  infamous  description."  Moore  gave 
in  a  note  to  his  Epistle  to  Thomas  Hume,  his  prosaic  idea  ol 
the  city  in  1804 : 

''  Most  of  the  public  buildings  liave  been  utterly  suspended. 
The  hotel  is  already  a  ruin  ;  a  great  part  of  the  roof  has  fallen 
in,  and  the  rooms  are  left  to  be  occupied  gratuitously  by  the 
miserable  Scotch  and  Irish  emigrants.  The  President's  house, 
a  very  noble  structure,  is  by  no  means  suited  to  the  philosoph- 
ical humility  of  its  present  possesor,  who  inhabits  but  a  cor- 
ner of  the  mansion  himself,  and  abandons  the  rest  to  a  state 
of  uncleanly  desolation.  This  grand  edifice  is  encircled  by  a 
very  rude  paling,  through  which  a  common  rustic  stile  intro- 
duces the  visitor  to  the  first  man  in  America.     The  private 


274  "T^^l   MOORE  S   VERSES   ON   THE   CAPITAL. 

buildings  exhibit  the  same  characteristic  display  of  arrogant 
speculation  and  premature  ruin." 

The  following  are  some  of  Moore's  oft-quoted  rhymes  upon 
the  Capital  at  that  date  : 

"  While  yet  upon  Columbia's  rising  brow 
The  showy  smile  of  young  presumption  plays, 
*    *     'tis  heartless  speculative  ill, 
All  youth's  transgressions  with  all  ages  chill.'* 

*'  Even  here  already  patriots  learn  to  steal 
Their  private  perquisites  from  public  weal, 
And  guardians  of  the  country's  sacred  fire, 
Like  Afric's  priests,  let  out  the  flame  for  hire.*' 

*'  In  fancy,  now,  beneath  the  twilight  gloom, 
Come,  let  me  lead  thee  o'er  the  second  Rome 
Where  tribunes  rule,  where  dusky  Davi  bow. 
And  what  was  Goose  creek  once  is  Tiber  now; 
This  embryo  Capital,  where  fancy  sees 
Squares  in  morasses,  obelisks  in  trees 
Which  second-sighted  seers,  even  now  adorn 
With  shrines  unbuilt   and  heroes  yet  unborn.** 

Moore  then  pays  his  respects  to  the  mighty  river,  and  land- 
scape gracing  a  race 

"  Of  weak  barbarians  swarming  o'er  its  breast 
Like  vermin  gendered  on  the  lion's  crest." 

The  poet  at  this  distance  has  grown  relatively  small  as  his 
impatient  opinion  of  a  city  just  begun.  Goose  creek  is  Tiber 
now,  occupying  a  rank  not  inferior  in  North  America  to  the 
Tiber  over  the  ancient  world. 

The  roads  in  the  State  of  Maryland  leading  to  Washington, 
rays  Isaac  Weld,  writing  in  1795,  "  are  worse  than  in  any  State 
in  the  Union  ;  indeed,  so  very  bad  are  they  that  on  going 
iVom  Elton  to  the  Susquehanna  ferry,  the  driver  had  frequently 
to  call  to  the  passengers  in  the  stage  to  lean  out  of  the  carriage, 
first  at  one  side, then  at  the  other,  to  prevent  it  from  oversetting 
in  the  deep  ruts."  He  also  describes  the  "  execrable  roads  from 
ihe  Susquehanna  to  Baltimore,  the  unpaved  streets  of  Baltimore 
itself  nearly  impassible  with  water  and  stiff,  yellow  clay,  and 


IMPROVEMEXTS   IN  WASHINGTON.  275 

the  road  thence  to  Washington,  where  a  sulky  will  sink  up  to 
the  veiy  bo:xes  ;"  and  adds  :  "  General  Washington,  a  sliort 
time  before  was  stopped  in  the  same  place  where  I  was  en- 
gulfed, his  carriage  sinking  so  deep  in  the  mud  that  it  was 
found  necessary  to  send  to  a  neighboring  house  for  ropes  and 
poles  to  extricate  it." 

Weld  shows  the  sizes  of  the  other  cities  of  America,  in  I  TOG, 
to  be  as  follows  : 

*'  Lancaster,  the  largest  of  the  interior  towns,  contained  900 
houses  in  1796  ;  Newport,  R.  I.,  1,000 ;  no  other  town  be- 
tween Boston  and  New  York,  above  500  ;  Albany,  1,100  ;  Tren- 
ton, 200  ;  Harrisburg,  300  ;  New  York  City  40,000  people  ; 
Baltimore  16,000  people  ;  Wilmington,  Del.,  600  houses  ;  Thil- 
adelphia,  50,000  people." 

The  wharf  at  the  foot  of  17tli  Street,  mouth  of  the  Tiber, 
was  provided  for  as  long  ago  as  1806.  A  warehouse  to  con- 
tain 600  hogsheads  of  tobacco  was  a  feature  of  the  city  40 
years  ago,  on  square  801,  Eastern  Branch,  as  it  is  shown  in 
old  views  of  the  city. 

We  derive  from  the  Commissioners'  reports,  in  Adams's  ad- 
ministration, the  reason  of  the  early  failure  of  Greenleaf, 
Nicholson,  and  Morris,  the  greatest  purchasers  of  land  and  the 
ablest  speculators  on  the  site. 

This  first  report  of  the  Commissioners  says  : 

"  No  sales  took  place  deserving  attention  until  the  23  d 
December,  1793,  when  a  contract  was  made  with  Robert 
Morris  and  James  Greenleaf,  for  the  sale  of  six  thousand  lots, 
averaging  five  thousand  two  Imndred  and  sixty-five  square 
feet  each,  at  the  rate  of  eighty  dollars  per  lot,  payable  in  seven 
equal  annual  installments,  without  interest,  commencing  the 
first  of  May,  1794,  and  with  condition  of  building  twenty  brick 
houses  annually,  two  stories  high  and  covering  twelve  hundred 
square  feet  each,  and  with  the  further  condition  that  they 
should  not  sell  any  lots  previous  to  the  first  of  January, 
1796,  but  on  condition  of  erecting  on  every  third  lot  one  such 
house  within  four  years  from  the  time  of  sale.     This  con- 


276  FIRST  LINE   OF  STAGES. 

tract  was  afterwards  modified  by  an  agreement  of  24th  April, 
1794,  by  which  the  payment  of  eighty  thousand  dollars,  and 
the  erecting  the  first-mentioned  houses,  should  rest  on  the 
joint  bond  of  the  said  Morris  and  Greenleaf,  and  of  John 
Nicholson  ;  and  that  one  thousand  lots  should  be  conveyed  to 
the  said  Morris  and  Greenleaf  D,  which  was  accordingly 
done."  ^ 

"  Notwithstanding  the  favorable  prospect  which  this  trans- 
action for  a  time,  afforded,"  say  they  to  the  President,  "  the 
scene  soon  changed.  The  purchasers  not  only  failed  to  pay 
the  installment  which  became  due  in  May,  1795,  but  early  in 
that  year  discontinued  the  buildings  which  they  had  com- 
menced under  their  contract,  and  on  which  very  little  progress 
has  since  been  made." 

It  was  therefore  determined  to  solicit  the  patronage  of  Con- 
gress, which  was  done  in  the  year  1796,  by  a  memorial  from 
the  Commissioners  stating  the  affairs  of  the  Federal  Seat, 
in  as  clear  a  light  as  circumstances  would  then  admit,  and 
suggesting  the  propriety  of  authorizing  a  loan,  bottomed  on  the 
city  property,  and  guaranteed  by  Congress,  if  that  property 
should  prove  deficient.  Congress  approved  of  tlie  measure, 
and  authorized  a  loan  under  their  guarantee,  to  the  amount  of 
three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  It  is  needless  to  detail  the 
fruitless  attempts  which  were  made  to  fill  this  loan  with  actual 
specie.  The  only  loan  which  could  be  obtained  was  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  in  United  States  Six  per  cent, 
stock,  at  par,  from  the  state  of  Maryland,  and  for  which  the 
Commissioners  were  obliged,  in  addition  to  the  guarantee  of 
Congress,  to  give  bonds  in  their  individual  capacities,  agreeably 
to  the  resolutions  of  the  assembly  of  that  State,  passed  in  the 
years  1796  and  1797." 

A  line  of  stages  was  first  established  between  Baltimore  and 
Philadelphia  only  in  1782,  and  corporate  roads  had  no  exist- 
ence before  1804.  Hence,  when  Washington  laid  the  corner- 
stone of  the  Capitol,  September  18,  1793,  and  when  John 
Adams  passed  through  Baltimore  to  occupy  the  magistrate's 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  277 

house,  Juno  15,  1800,  the  surroundings  of  the  city  were  sylvan 
to  the  eye  only.  Steamers  ascended  to  the  city  in  Madison's 
administration  ;  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  canal,  began  in 
1828,  was  opened  to  Hancock  in  1839,  at  a  cost  of  above 
eleven  and  a  half  millions  of  dollars.  Finally  the  Washington 
branch  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railroad  was  opened  for 
travel  August  25,  1835.  It  was  not  until  1851  that  stages  to 
the  West  were  wholly  suspended,  and  another  competing  rail- 
way to  the  North  was  not  to  be  had  until  1872,  when  the  Bal- 
timore and  Potomac  railway  was  opened.  Direct  steam  com- 
munication with  upper  Maryland  is  now  (1873)  about  to  be 
given  to  the  District  of  Columbia  by  the  Metropolitan  branch 
railway,  and  to  this  day  little  packet  steamers  carry  mails  and 
passengers  up  to  the  locks  of  the  Potomac  four  miles  an 
hour. 

On  the  Fourth  of  July,  1800 — Independence  Day — Oliver 
Wolcott,  Jr.,  then  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury,  wrote  thus  to 
his  wife,  about  the  ancestral  people  of  Washington  and 
Georgetown  : 

"  There  are  but  few  houses  at  any  one  place,  and  most  of 
them  small,  miserable  huts,  which  present  an  awful  contrast  to 
the  public  buildings.  The  people  are  poor,  and  so  far  as  I  can 
judge,  they  hve,  like  fishes,  by  eating  each  other.  All  the 
ground  for  several  miles  around  the  city  being,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  people,  too  valuable  to  be  cultivated,  remains  unfenced. 
There  are  but  few  enclosures,  even  for  gardens,  and  these  are 
in  bad  order.  You  may  look  in  almost  any  direction,  over  an 
extent  of  ground  nearly  as  large  as  the  City  of  New  York,  with- 
out seeing  a  fence,  or  any  object,  except  brick-kilns  and  tempo- 
rary huts  for  laborers.  Mr.  Law  and  a  few  other  gentlemen, 
live  in  great  splendor ;  but  most  of  the  inhabitants  are  low 
people  whose  appearance  indicates  vice  and  intemperance,  or 
negroes." 

"  All  the  lands  which  I  have  described  are  valued,  by  the 
superficial  foot,  at  fourteen  to  twenty-five  cents.  There  ap- 
pears to  be  a  confident  expectation  that  this  place  will  soon 


278  JANSON'S   VIEW   OF  WASHLXGTON. 

exceed  any  city  in  the  world.  Mr.  Thornton,  one  of  the  Com- 
missioners, spoke  of  160,000  people,  as  a  matter  of  course,  in 
a  few  years.  No  stranger  can  be  here  a  day,  and  converse 
with  the  proprietors,  without  conceiving  himself  in  the  com- 
pany of  crazy  people.  Their  ignorance  of  the  rest  of  the 
world,  and  their  delusions  with  respect  to  their  own  prospects, 
arc  without  parallel.  Immense  sums  have  b6en  squandered  in 
buildings  which  are  but  partly  finished,  in  situations  which  are 
not,  and  never  will  be,  the  scenes  of  business  ;  while  the 
parts  near  the  public  buildings  are  almost  wholly  unim- 
proved. 

"  I  had  no  conception,  till  I  came  here,  of  the  folly  and  in- 
fatuation of  the  people  who  have  directed  the  settlements. 
Though  five  times  as  much  money  has  been  expended  as  was 
necessary,  and  though  the  private  buildings  are  in  immber  suf- 
ficient for  all  who  will  have  occasion  to  reside  here,  yet  there 
is  nothing  convenient,  and  nothing  plenty  but  provisions.  Tliere 
is  no  industry,  society,  or  business.  With  great  trouble  and 
expense,  much  mischief  has  been  done  which  it  will  be  almost 
impossible  to  remedy." 

Charles  William  Janson,  an  Englishman,  who  had  been  bitten 
in  American  speculations,  thus  describes  the  place  about  1804  : 

"  The  entrances,  or  avenues  as  they  are  pompously  called, 
are  the  worst  roads  I  passed  in  the  country,  and  I  appeal  to 
every  citizen  who  has  been  unlucky  enough  to  travel  the  stages 
North  and  South  leading  to  the  city,  for  the  truth  of  the  asser- 
tion. I  particularly  allude  to  the  mail  stage  road  from  Bladens- 
burg  to  Washington,  and  thence  to  Alexandria.  In  the  Win- 
ter season,  during  the  sitting  of  Congress,  every  turn  of  your 
wagon  wheel  is  for  miles  attended  with  danger.  The  roads 
are  never  repaired  ;  deep  ruts,  rocks,  and  stumps  of  trees 
every  minute  impede  your  progress." 

"  Arrived  at  the  city,  you  are  struck  with  its  grotesque  ap- 
pearance. In  one  view  from  the  Capitol  Hill  the  eye  fixes 
upon  a  row  of  uniform  houses,  ten  or  twelve  in  number,  while 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN  WASHINGTON.  279 

it  faintly  discovers  the  adjacent  tenements  to  be  miserable 
wooden  structures." 

"  Of  the  hotel  so  vauntingly  promised  to  rival  the  large  inns 
of  England,  the  walls  and  roof  remain,  but  not  a  window." 

"  The  frigate  which  brought  the  Sunisian  Embassy  grounded 
on  the  rocks  below  the  city  and  the  barbarians  were  obliged  to 
be  landed  in  boats." 

Janson  then  tells  how  the  fever  of  speculation  raged  in 
Europe  over  the  great  city. 

"In  London  XoOO  sterling  was,  at  one  time,  asked  for  a 
sixth-part  of  a  single  lot,  many  of  the  prime  of  which  were 
originally  purchased  for  .£20  at  three  years'  credit." 

The  same  plain  author,  in  his  book  (1806)  shows  that 
Washington  was  blamed  for  the  choice  of  the  site  : 

"  The  Republican  party  insinuated  that  Washington  had 
pitched  on  a  spot  for  the  seat  of  government  near  his  estate  of 
Yernon,  in  order  to  enhance  its  value.  This  choice,  I  believe, 
was  directed  to  one  object  only — the  Capitol  is  built  in  the 
centre  of  the  United  States." 

"  It  can  never  become  a  place  of  commerce,  however,  while 
Baltimore  lies  on  one  side  and  Alexandria  on  the  other." 

"  Washington  himself  wrote  as  to  the  lotteries  to  build 
parts  of  the  city :  '  the  whole  Washington  lottery  business  has 
turned  out  a  bed  of  thorns  rather  than  roses.'  " 

Janson  goes  on  to  say  that  : 

"  Strangers  after  viewing  the  offices  of  State,  are  apt  to  in- 
quire for  the  city,  while  they  are  in  its  very  centre." 

"  Many  English  artists,  enchanted  with  the  description  given 
by  interested  writers,  left  their  employ  in  order  to  exert  their 
abilities  in  finishing  this  scene  of  contemplated  magnificence." 

"  Tippling  shops  and  houses  of  rendezvous  for  sailors  and 
their  doxies,  with  a  number  of  the  lowest  order  of  traders, 
constitute  the  Navy  Yard,  the  only  flourishing  part  of  the  town." 
Six  frigates  in  ordinary,  one  in  commission,  and  a  small  vessel 
of  war  were  just  launched  at  the  time  of  his  visit : 

"  A  long  range  of  houses,  called   the   twenty  buildings  at 


280  WASHINGTON   AS   SEEN   BY   EARLY   VISITORS. 

Greenleaf  s  Point,  begun  by  Nicholson  and  others,  first-rate 
speculators,  are  covered  in,  unfinished,  and  are  dropping  piece- 
meal."    So  they  are  to-day. 

"  I  never  heard,"  said  he,  "  of  more  than  Pennsylvania  and 
New  Jersey  Avenues  in  1805,  except  after  some  houses  had 
been  uniformly  built,  in  one  of  which  lived  Mr.  Jefferson's 
printer,  John  Harrison  Smith  ;  a  few  more  of  inferior  note, 
with  some  public  houses,  and  here  and  there  a  grog  shop. 
This  boasted  Avenue  is  as  much  a  wilderness  as  Kentucky ,with 
this  advantage,  that  the  soil  is  good  for  nothing.  Some  half 
starved  cattle  browsing  among  the  bushes  present  a  melancholy 
spectacle  to  a  stranger.  Quails  and  other  birds  are  constantly 
shot  within  a  hundred  yards  of  the  Capitol  during  the  sitting 
of  the  houses  of  Congress." 

"  Mr.  Green  and  the  Yirginia  company  of  comedians  were 
nearly  starved  in  the  small  place  called  a  theatre,  in  the  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue,  during  the  only  season  it  was  occupied,  and 
were  obliged  to  go  off  to  Richmond  during  the  very  height  of 
the  sitting  of  Congress." 

John  Davis,  a  school  master,  who  resided  in  America  from 
1798  to  1802  has  given  like  amusing  testimony  : 

"  Washington,^^  he  says,  "  on  my  second  visit  to  it,  wore  a  very 
dreary  aspect.  The  multitude  had  gone  to  their  homes,  and 
the  inhabitants  of  the  place  were  few.  There  were  no  objects 
to  catch  the  eye,  but  a  forlorn  pilgrim  forcing  his  way  through 
the  grass  that  overruns  the  streets,  or  a  cow  ruminating  on  a 
bank,  from  whose  neck  depended  a  bell,  that  the  animal  might 
be  found  the  more  readily  in  the  woods." 

Extracts  from  the  reports  of  the  early  Commissioners  present 
some  interesting  facts  : 

"  The  city  owned  an  island  of  free-stone  of  immense  value 

(at  Acquia  Creek). 

******* 

Mr.  A.  White  (1796)  was  of  the  opinion  that  filling  up 
some  gulleys  or  ravines  near  the  Capitol  and  paving  the  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  from  thence  to  the  President's  house  was  all 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  281 

that  was  necessary  to  be  done  to  the  streets  except  clearing 

them  of  stumps  and  grubs,  etc. 

******* 

A  sale  of  water  property  of  3,500  feet  front  brought  $16  a 
foot  prior  to  1796. 

The  first  engraved  plans  of  the  city  and  territory  cost  $370, 
the  first  bridge  over  the  Tiber  $788,  the  first  bridge  at  James's 
Creek  $342,  and  the  first  wharf  (on  the  Eastern  Branch) 
$1,017  ;  the  first  bridge  over  Rock  Creek  cost  $12,700. 

^  ^  ^  T^  iT>  '7S  '¥> 

The  Lottery  Commissioners  to  build  a  canal  in  1802  were 
Notley  Young,  Daniel  Carroll,  Lewis  Deblois,  George  Walker, 
Wm.  Mayne,  Duncanson,  Thomas  Law,  and  James  Barry. 

As  early  as  1803  Mr.  Bacon  of  Massachusetts  moved  reso- 
lutions to  re-cede  the  district  to  the  States  which  had  given  it. 
After  two  days'  debate  they  were  lost, — 66  to  26. 

In  1816,  there  were  but  750  assessable  persons  in  Washing- 
ton, whose  houses,  land,  and  slaves  were  valued  at  $2,391,357. 
Georgetown  had  645  such  persons  better  possessed  in  propor- 
tion and  Alexandria  with  782  taxables  was  worth  $3,259,901. 
In  the  whole  ten  miles  square,  there  Avere  but  3,000  tax-payers. 
The  population  of  all  the  Maryland  side  of  the  District,  had 
been  about  17,000  when  the  British  invaded  it. 

The  only  water  used  in  the  city  for  years  was  well-water,  and 
to  this  day  the  Capital  is  supplied  from  the  springs  on  Tiber 
Creek.  The  source  of  Tiber  Creek  was  estimated  by  Ellicott 
to  be  236  feet  above  tide-water,  or  158  feet  higher  than  the 
base  of  the  Capitol  at  the  distance  of  two  miles ;  he  designed 
at  one  time,  to  use  Rock  Creek  for  the  source  of  permanent 
supply  of  the  city.  The  highest  ground  in  Washington  within 
the  city  boundary  is  back  of  Massachusetts  Avenue  and  is  about 
^03  feet  above  low  tide.  The  base  of  the  observatory  is  above 
six  feet  higher  than  the  base  of  the  Capitol,  which  is  89|-  feet 
above  low  tide.  Lafayette  Square  is  about  15  feet  above  low- 
tide  water. 


282 


THE  NIAGARA.   OF   THE   POTOMAC. 


The  Great  Falls  are  only  108  feet  above  tide-water,  and  can 
be  relied  upon  for  a  supply  of  86,000,000  gallons  per  diem. 
Andrew  Ellicott  first  suggested  the  Great  Falls  as  the  source  of 
the  city's  water-supply  ;  and  sixty  years  afterward.  Lieutenant 
Meigs  confirmed  his  judgment. 

If  this  country  had  no  Niagara,  the  Great  Falls  of  the  Poto- 
mac would  be  one  of  its  most  celebrated  ornaments.  It  is 
astonishing  to  know  how  few  people  of  Washington  have  ever 
visited  it.  The  road  to  the  spot  leads  over  the  gentle  level  of 
the  great  aqueduct,  and  is  a 
charming  succession  of  sights, 
prospects,  and  lonesome 
stretches;  but  the  road  is 
unfortunately  unpaved,  and, 
therefore,  in  w^et  weather,  is 
hardly  passable.  A  slow  but 
agreeable  way  of  getting  to 
the  Falls  is  by  a  quaint  little 
steamer,  which  runs  up  the 
canal,  carrying  mails  and  pas- 
sengers to  Point  of  Rocks, 
every  alternate  day.  The  t^e  great  falls  of  the  potomac. 
locks  on  this  canal  are  among  the  most  magnificent  in  the 
world  ;  and  the  entire  trip  to  Harper's  Ferry,  which  consumes 
all  the  hours  of  daylight,  is  one  of  the  most  agreeable  in  our 
landscapes.  It  passes  the  Little  and  the  Great  Falls,  the  groat 
arch  over  Cabin  John  Run,  the  Seneca  quarries,  the  battle- 
fields of  Ball's  Bluff  and  Monocacy,  and  along  the  wliole  line 
of  that  haunted  stream  which  seems  to  echo  forever  those  deep 
and  olden  tones :  "  All  quiet  on  the  Potomac." 

There  are  eleven  tunnels  on  the  Washington  aqueduct  and 
six  bridges  ;  the  bridge  over  Cabin  John  now  is  a  stupendous 
arch  220  feet  span  and  100  feet  high.  The  reservoir  coveiB 
eighty  acres. 

The  Great  Falls  itself  is  something  of  a  canal-village.  There 
is  a  large  and  commodious  house  for  the  Canal  Company,  and 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  283 

a  storeiiouse  and  some  shanties  put  up  to  accommodate  laborers 
on  the  aqueduct.  The  canal  and  the  ereek  must  be  crossed  to 
get  to  the  Falls,  which  are  situated  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the 
village.  The  Fall  itself  can  be  beheld  from  the  rocky  preci- 
pices which  inclose  it,  in  all  the  solemnity  of  nature  and  lone- 
liness. A  series  of  strong  and  heady  rapids  fleck  the  wide 
river  as  it  comes  narrowing  down  to  a  series  of  strewn  rocks, 
some  of  them  of  formidable  size.  Between  some  of  the  great- 
est of  these,  the  river  tumbles  in  elbow-form,  and,  proceeding 
a  few  feet  farther,  dashes  again  into  a  dark  gorge,  surrounded 
with  naked  steeps,  along  which  the  firs  and  forest-trees  are 
revealed  in  the  back-ground,  hemming  in  the  lonesome  pool 
with  stern  and  befitting  foliages.  Back  of  the  Great  Falls,  on 
the  Maryland  side,  are  the  villages  of  Offutt's  Cross-Roads  and 
Rockville,  as  well  as  a  gold-mine  which  has  produced  several 
fine  nuggets.  On  the  Virginia  side  are  the  towns  of  Drainesville 
and  Leesburg,  and  the  beautiful  Difficult  Creek,  which  formed 
a  feature  in  the  War  of  Secession. 

Washington  City,  without  reference  to  its  associate  towns  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  remained  nearly  stationery  in  popu- 
lation between  1800  and  1810,  with  about  8,000  inhabitants. 
The  British  did  the  place  no  permanent  injury  but  rather  rein- 
sured it  to  be  the  immovable  seat  of  government,  and  by  1820 
Washington  was  enumerated  at  above  13,000  people.  It  missed 
20,000  at  1830,  and  even  at  1840  was  a  place  of  little  above 
23,000  people,  but  by  1850,  it  numbered  one  soul  more  than 
40,000  and  in  1860  contained  above  60,000.  In  ten  years  more 
there  were  110,000  residents  at  the  Capital,  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  old  District,  including  the  discarded  Virginia  portion,  could 
not  now  add  to  the  city  above  40,000  more  than  it  possesses. 

The  message  of  General  Henry  D.  Cooke,  May  28th,  1873, 
showed  that  ^856,597  had  been  collected  of  taxes  and  $619,000 
due.  In  the  nineteen  months  preceding,  the  cash  receipts  had 
been  $10,007,676  and  the  expenditures  $9,913,716.  The  funded 
debt  was  $9,016,891  and  the  bonds  of  the  corporation  were 
held  at  97  cents  on  the  dollar.     There  had  been  1216  buildings 


284  THE  RAPID   GROWTH   OF  THE   CITY. 

erected  in  the  city  during  the  year  1872,  valued  at  13,209,250, 
and  there  had  been  2,833  transfers  of  property. 

The  bridge  which  precedes  No.  3  over  Rock  Creek  was  a 
plank  structure  and  that  in  turn  was  replaced  by  a  bridge  made 
of  the  refuse  materials  of  the  public  buildings. 

When  Hoban  rebuilt  the  President's  house  the  main  portico 
was  omitted  until  about  1831.  About  the  same  time  a  stable 
was  proposed  for  the  President.  Mr.  Bulfinch  proceeded  in 
1830  to  plant  the  Avenue  with  forest  trees.  In  1871  the  arch- 
itect, Mullet,  diverted  an  appropriation  into  a  new  stable  for 
President  Grant,  which  caused  some  animadversion. 

There  were  eighteen  burying  grounds  in  Washington  in 
1846  and  but  one  modern  cemetery,  Glenwood.  In  1873  there 
are  half  a  dozen  cemeteries  besides  national  ones. 

One  of  President  Harrison's  first  acts  was  to  institute  a 
commission  of  inquiry  into  what  was  feared  to  be  a  needless 
and  extravagant  expenditm^e  of  money  upon  the  public  works 
in  the  City  of  Washington. 

The  only  Presidents  of  the  United  States  who  are  known  to 
have  bought  property  in  Washington  are  General  Washington, 
John  Quincy  Adams,  and  General  Grant.  Mr.  Adams  erected 
a  commodious  mansion  still  standing  near  Lafayette  Square. 
General  Grant  disposed  of  his  house,  before  he  became  Presi- 
dent, to  his  successsor  at  the  head  of  the  army.  General  Sher- 
man. 

The  Treasury  building  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  Jackson's 
administration,  and  he  is  said  to  have  commanded  Mills,  the 
architect,  to  erect  the  new  one  in  its  present  site,  thereby  con- 
cealing the  White  House  from  the  Avenue.  Mr.  Mills  was 
making  strict  measurements  with  instruments  when  Jackson, 
restive  of  delay,  put  down  his  walking  stick  and  said  :  "  Right 
here  I  want  the  corner  stone  !  "  Jackson  also  ordered  a  pub- 
lic clock,  the  location  of  which  had  been  a  matter  of  debate, 
to  be  put  up  on  the  Treasury  water-closet,  and  Mr.  Mullet 
told  me  he  took  it  down  from  that  spot  while  building  the 
extensions. 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  285 

Seneca  stone  was  used  about  the  Capital  at  a  very  early 
period,  and  in  1828  there  is  a  charge  of  $3,740  for  it.  Mr. 
Lee,  the  proprietor,  charged  fifteen  dollars  a  ton,  delivered. 
The  stone  was  used  for  flagging  and  steps. 

The  bill  to  build  an  aqueduct  to  carry  the  canal  over  the 
Potomac  at  Georgetown,  was  pressed  in  1832,  and  met  witli 
much  opposition  from  Georgetown,  whose  people  alleged  that 
the  piers  would  ruin  their  harbor. 

Oldish,  castellated,  with  queer,  feudal-looking  round  towers, 
stands  Georgetown  College  on  the  heights  above  the  Potomac, 
with  a  deep  funeral  vale  winding  below,  and  the  sprawling, 
shining,  islet-sprinkled  river  brawling  away  right  opposite. 

Georgetown  College  is  the  largest  Jesuit  college  in  the  coun- 
try. The  oldest  part  was  built  1789,  the  main  edifice  in  1791. 
It  was  founded  by  John  Carroll,  first  Archbishop  of  Baltimore, 
who  renounced  his  interest  in  the  Duddington  and  other  estates 
when  he  became  a  priest  in  1771.  He  was  educated  at  Bohe- 
mia, Md.,  and  St.  Omer,  Flanders.  He  gathered  together  the 
Catholics  ol  Montgomery  County  and  adjacent  parts,  while 
still  in  his  youth,  proceeded  to  Canada  with  Dr.  Franklin,  and 
Charles  Carroll,  his  relative,  to  make  an  alliance  for  the  Rev- 
olutionary Colonies,  led  a  devout  and  beautiful  life,  and  died 
Dec.  3,  1815,  at  Baltimore.  In  this  College  lived,  for  more 
than  forty  years  after  her  husband's  tragic  death,  the  widow  of 
Stephen  Decatur,  and  his  portrait  hangs  in  the  College.  All 
the  Carrolls  of  Duddington  are  buried  there.  The  institution 
possesses  a  large  estate. 

Washington  City  has  never  propelled  a  satellite  or  accessory 
town,  nor  have  any  of  the  older  villages  in  its  vicinity  grown 
by  receiving  sustenance  from  it,  Baltimore  only  excepted. 
Bladensburg  declined  at  the  beginning  of  the  revolution  by 
the  flight  of  the  Scotch  factor  and  agents  who  carried  on  its 
commerce.  Alexandria,  about  1798,  was  quite  flourishing,  but 
the  capture  of  American  vessels  by  tlie  French  in  the  West 
Indies,  occasioned  many  failures.  In  1803,  the  yellow  fever 
broke  out  there.  The  town  in  1803  had  but  two  or  three  ships 
in  the  trade  with  Great  Britain. 


286  A   USELESS  CANAL. 

As  early  as  1809  a  company  was  incorporated  to  cut  a  canal 
through  the  city  of  Washington  to  extend  from  the  deep  nav- 
igation of  the  Eastern  Branch,  to  the  Potomac  River,  taking 
chiefly  the  course  of  the  Tiber.  No  benefit  was  derived  from 
this  inefficient  company,  and  in  1831  the  city  corporation  pur- 
chased the  right  and  interest  of  the  Canal  Company,  in  order 
to  introduce  the  business  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  canal  into 
the  city.  The  lock  connecting  this  Corporation  canal  with  the 
Chesapeake  and  Ohio,  was  placed  at  the  foot  of  17th  street, 
beside  the  Yan  Ness  mansion,  where  the  old  stone  lock-house 
is  standing  yet,  in  dilapidation  and  loneliness.  Just  below 
this  lock,  a  large  basin  was  formed  at  the  outlet  of  the  Tiber. 
A  small  island  called  Goose-Egg  Island  stood  in  this  basin,  and 
both  canal  and  basin  were  walled  with  stone  throughout  the 
whole  course.  The  Corporation  Canal  cost  $225,000,  and 
between  1836  and  1838  it  was  of  some  utility  as  far  up  as  the 
market  at  Seventh  street.  Being  a  sewer  and  a  stench,  it  has 
been  filled  up  by  the  present  Board  of  Public  Works,  and 
henceforward  will  show  no  trace  upon  the  landscape  of  Wash- 
ington. The  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal  has  been  of  little  use 
below  Georgetown  for  several  years.  Above  Georgetown  for 
184  miles  to  Cumberland  it  is  in  active  and  useful  operation, 
and  probably  will  continue  to  be  so  with  posterity.  The  average 
movement  of  freight  by  the  Potomac  Canal  is  now  about  850,000 
tonnage,  bringing  a  net  revenue  of  upwards  of  8200,000.  The 
toll  per  ton  of  coal  from  Cumberland  to  Georgetown  has  gen- 
erally been  46  cents,  and  on  grain  il.80  per  ton.  The  canal 
has  a  debt  of  about  $3,500,000.  It  costs  in  all,  to  deliver  coal 
to  vessel  at  Georgetown  from  the  coal-field,  82. 13^  per  ton, — 
wharfage  standing  at  35  cents. 

The  Washington  Navy  Yard  was  provided  for  in  1804  under 
the  encouragement  of  Mr.  Jefferson.  Benjamin  H.  Latrobe, 
architect  of  the  Capitol,  designed  its  arched  gateway.  Within 
the  yard  are  about  28  acres  of  ground  surrounded  by  a  strong 
brick  wall ;  an  exquisite  object  on  this  wall  is  the  sentry-box 
at  one  corner,  which  is  built  of  brick  in  the  style  of  the  feudal 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  287 

turret.  This  was  put  up  during  the  war,  when  it  became  nec- 
essary to  guard  enlisted  seamen  with  -carefuhiess.  Here  were 
built  some  of  the  best  old  vessels  in  the  Navy  such  as  the  ships 
Wasp  and  Argus,  the  brig  Viper,  the  Columbus,  of  74  guns, 
the  frigates  Essex,  Potomac,  Brandyivine,  and  Columbia,  the 
schooners  Shark  and  Grampus,  and  the  sloop  of  war  St.  Louis. 

The  corner  stone  of  the  old  City  Hall,  now  the  United  States 
and  District  Court  building,  was  laid  August  22, 1820.  With- 
in it  was  deposited  the  following : 

"  This  corner-stone  ot  the  City  Hall,  designed  by  George 
Hodfield,  architect,  was  laid  on  the  22d  day  of  August,  A.  D. 
1820,  A.  L.  5820,  and  in  the  forty-fifth  year  of  the  independ- 
ence of  the  United  States  of  America,  by  Wm.  Hewitt,  E.  W. 
G.  M.  of  the  Grand  Lodge  of  Freemasons  of  the  District  of 
Columbia ;  James  Munroe,  President  of  the  United  States ; 
Samuel  N.  Smallwood,  mayor  of  the  city  of  Washington." 

And  on  the  reverse  side  of  the  plate : 

*'  Commissioners  for  erecting  City  Hall — Samuel  N.  Small- 
wood,  mayor ;  R.  C.  Weightman,  William  Prout,  Thomas  Car- 
berry,  John  P.  Ingle." 

The  orator  of  the  day  was  John  Law,  Esq.  Many  notable 
trials  occurred  in  thi&  building,  amongst  which  were  those  of 
Daniel  G.  Sickles,  for  the  murder  of  Philip  Barton  Key,  and 
of  John  Surratt  for  the  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  In  1873 
the  United  States  Government  gave  the  District  $75,000  for 
its  interest  in  this  old  freestone  edifice,  when  it  was  determined 
to  begin  at  once  the  construction  of  new  municipal  buildings 
on  Market  square.  Mr.  Law  remarked  at  the  laying  of  the 
corner-stone,  that  Washington  then  claimed  14,000  souls,  and 
$6,000,000  capital,  and  the  corporation  revenue  was  $40,000. 
Thirty  miles  of  streets  had  been  opened  and  improved,  and 
some  turnpike  roads  and  bridges  opened.  The  Government 
had  lent  the  town  $100,000  in  1798,  and  $12,000  in  1800,  both 
of  which  sums  had  been  fully  repaid  with  interest. 

The  old  market  houses  of  the  Federal  City  were  destroyed 
in  1870  72,  and  the  present  elegant  edifices  built  in  their  stead. 


288  THE   NATIONAL   OBSERVATORY. 

The  longitude  of  the  Capitol  was  determined  in  1823,  by 
"William  Lambert,  to  be  76°  5o  30'  .54  west  from  Greenwich. 
General  Washington  had  designed  the  meridian  of  the  Capital 
to  be  the  first  meridian  of  the  United  States,  and  instructed 
Andrew  Ellicott  to  record  0°  0'  longitude  and  38°  53'  noi 
latitude,  in  the  original  plan  of  the  city.  In  1809,  Lamberv, 
above  referred  to,  a  Virginian,  memorialized  Congress  to  take 
the  longitude,  and  a  committee  reported  in  favor  of  the  plan, 
but  it  lapsed  until  1811,  when  Secretary  of  State  Monroe  gave  it 
a  good,  if  a  diffident,  word,  and  endorsed  Mr.  Lambert's  patriot- 
ism. The  indefatigable  astronomer  addressed  as  many  of  the 
assembled  Congressmen  as  would  hear  him,  and  in  1812,  Dr. 
Samuel  L.  Mitchell,  of  New  York,  reported  in  favor  of  a 
National  Observatory.  Not  until  March  3d,  1821,  did  the  pro- 
position meet  with  its  deserts.  Different  observations  were 
made  by  Andrew  Ellicott, 
Abraham  Bradley,  and  Seth 
Pease  ;  but,  in  1821,  Lambert, 
commissioned  as  astronomer, 
resigned  his  station  of  inferior 
clerk  in  the  Pension  Office, 
took  lodgings  on  Capitol  Hill, 
and  borrowed  his  instruments 
from  the  Coast  Surveying 
authorities  of  that  time.     He  national  observatory,  on  obser- 

,       1  ,  .,       .        ,  ,  VATORY   HILL. 

had     a     transit    instrument, 

a  circle  of  reflections,  an  astronomical  clock,  and  a  chro- 
nometer. William  Elliot,  a  teacher  of  algebra  and  mathemat- 
ics assisted  him.  A  large  platform  was  erected  to  facilitate 
the  work.  The  latitude  was  declared  to  be  38°  52'  45".  Lam- 
bert made  a  copious  report  to  Congress,  and  advocated  a 
National  Observatory.  He  may  be  named  among  the  great 
clerks — and  there  are  many  noble  men  in  all  departments  of 
the  Government — who  have  risen  to  eminence  from  a  desk 
in  the  departments. 

In   1825,   President  J.    Q.    Adams    advocated   a  National 
Observatory,  and   met   with   ridicule,   and  it   was   not   until 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN  WASHINGTON.  289 

1836  that  Williams  College  became  the  pioneer  observatory 
of  the  land.  Finally  both  the  Government  and  the  Georgetown 
College  built  observatories.  The  longitude  of  the  National 
Observatory  on  Braddock's  hill  is  77°  3'  2.4". 

The  third  session  of  the  13th  Congress,  called  by  President 
Madison,  to  convene  on  the  19th  of  September,  1814,  met  in 
Blodget's  old  hotel,  which  Dr.  William  Thornton  had,  mean- 
time, made  habitable,  and  turned  a  part  of  it  into  a  repository 
of  arts,  models,  and  inventions,  and  he  had  succeeded,  as  well, 
in  saving  it  from  the  torch  of  the  British  incendiary  by  whom 
it  was  doomed.  At  this  time  Dr.  Thornton  was  a  clerk,  at 
$1,500  a  year,  in  the  State  Department. 

Morse's  Geography  for  1812  describes  Blodget's  hotel  ;  it 
was  60  feet  by  120  and  about  50  feet  high,  with  three  stories  ; 
it  was  built  of  brick,  with  a  freestone  basement.  The  old 
jail  of  that  day  was  10  feet  by  26,  and  two  stories  high,  with 
low  ceilings.  The  marine  barrack,  300  feet  long,  and  the  War 
and  State  buildings,  120  feet  front,  were  occupied.  The  yearly 
exports  of  the  whole  district  were  upwards  of  one  million  per 
annum.  Georgetown  had  four  churches  and  Washington  three 
market  houses.  In  1810  a  turnpike  was  incorporated  by  Con- 
gress from  Mason's  causeway  to  Alexandria. 

The  turnpike  company  between  Georgetown  and  Frederick-  _ 
town  was  incorporated  by  the  Maryland  legislature,  in  1812. 

The  old  poor-house  of  Washington  stood  on  the  elevated 
ground  to  the  north  of  the  old  Post  and  Patent  Offices.  Not  a 
vestige  remains  of  those  old  buildings,  where  strangers  from 
all  parts  of  the  Union,  coming  to  prosecute  claims  and  griev- 
ances and  seek  redress  from  the  Government,  often  found 
tlieir  last  hospitality  on  this  earth.  ^ 

The  old  asylum  of  Georgetown  still  stands,  and  is  a  quaint, 
Flemish-looking  structure  of  brick. 

The  Treasury  building  was  originally  built  between  1794  and 
1799,  and  in  1801  a  fire  swept  part  of  it  off.  The  British 
burned  it  in  1814,  and  it  again  began  to  arise  three  years 
later,  and  was  not  finished  until  1823.  Ten  years  later,  on 
March  29, 1833,  it  was  destroyed  by  fire  again,  and  now  its 
13 


290         THE   FALL   AND   RISE    OF   THE    TREASURY   BUILDING. 

architectural  liistorj,  as  wo  see  it,  began.  In  1835,  Eobcrt 
Mills,  of  South  Carolina,  was  appointed  to  supervise  it,  and  in 
four  years  he  raised  that  facade  of  columns  which  was  the 
glory  of  his  period,  [and  the  exceeding  annoyance  of  Mr.  Mullet, 
a  subsequent  architect,  who  said  that  [it  resembled  a  box  of 
cigars,  escaped  as  they  stood  on  end  in  a  long  row.  The  old 
State  Department  long  stood  at  riglit  angles  to  Mills's  fagade, 
where  the  north  end  of  the  Treasury  extension  now  is.  Mills's 
Treasury  was  finished  in  1839. 

In  1855  the  arrived  potentate  in  classical  architecture, 
Thomas  N.  Walters,  planned  the  extension  of  the  Treasury. 
Instead  of  Virginia  freestone,  granite  from  Dix  Island,  Maine, 
was  to  be  employed  for  these  three  great  parts  of  the  edifice 
remaining.  Mr.  A.  B.  Young,  who  is  still  a  resident  of  the 
Capital  City,  living  between  the  Treasury  gate  and  the  Poto- 
mac, on  Fifteenth  street,  was  the  architect  following  Mills,  and 
he  superintended  the  work  and  drawings  for  six  or  eight  years. 
Next  in  immediate  supervision  came  Mr.  Rogers,  architect  of 
the  Astor  House  hotel,  New  York  City.  Mr.  Alallet,  of  Chicin- 
nati,  a  native  of  England,  but  a  resident  of  the  United  States 
since  childhood,  completed  the  work,  and  in  his  headquar- 
ters, in  the  basement  of 
this  Treasury,  he  subse- 
quently made  the  designs 
for  the  majority  of  the  great 
Post-Offices,  Custom  Hous- 
es, Marine  Hospitals,  U.  S. 
Courts,  etc.,  in  the  country. 
The  south  wing  of  the 
Treasury  was  completed  in 
TREASURY  BUILDING.  1860  ;  thc   wcst    wiug    in 

1864  ;  and  the  north  wing  in  1869.  This  is  the  most  costly 
of  all  our  public  buildings,  considering  its  extent.  It  is  560 
feet,  by  nearly  273,  including  the  porticoes  and  steps.  Its  cost 
was  more  than  half  that  of  the  far  nobler  Capitol.  Mr.  Mills 
long  lived  on  New  Jersey  Avenue,  Capitol  Hill,  in  a  cele- 
brated  brick  dwelling,  with  a  peaked  roof  and  sky-light. 


ill   uililJllliiM  I  ^l!':'! 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON. 


291 


The  State  Department  at  Washington  was  originally  in  a 
private  dwelling  and  then  on  the  site  of  the  present  Treasury. 
It  was  removed  to  an  Orphan  Asylum  at  the  foot  of  Meridian 
Hill  during  the  rebellion,  and  in  1872  the  plans  of  A.  B. 
Mullet  were  accepted  for  an  edifice  of  granite  to  cost  from  six 
millions  to  eight  millions  of  dollars  and  to  accommodate  at 
once  the  Departments  of  War,  the  Navy,  and  the  State.  The 
building  was  forthwith  begun  and  will  be  finished  about  1876. 
It  is  in  the  style  of  classical  renaissance,  the  basement  of  Rich- 
mond granite  and  the  superstructure  of  Maine  granite.  While 
superintending  its  construction  Mr.  Mullet  was  also  erecting 
thirty-five  other  government  buildings  in  various  parts  of  the 
country. 


UNITED   STATES  POST-OFFICE. 

The  General  Post-Office  is  said  to  have  cost,  in  round  num- 
bers, one  million  and  a  half.  Its  controlling  masters  were 
Meigs,  Walters,  and  Edward  Clark.  It  was  commenced  about 
the  close  of  Pierce's  administration,  and  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
civil  war  was  finished  only  on  the  E  street  or  rear  wing  where 
the  chimneys  stand  and  the  rest  wa's  a  Commissary  storehouse. 
Tiie  architecture  of  the  exterior  is  due  to  Mills,  the  correction 
and  completion  of  the  remaining  two-thirds  to  Walters  and 
Clark.     The  edifice  was  wholly  occupied  in  18G6. 

The  Post-Office  extension  was  constructed  of  Kennebec,  Me., 
and  Woodstock,  Md.,  granite  at  about  43  cents  the  cubic  foot. 
The  marble  walls  were  of  Lee   and  Baltimore  granite  ;  the 


292  ACCOUNTS  OF  THE  BUILDING  OF    THE  VARIOUS  BUILDINGS 

monolithic  columns  and  their  trimmings  from  Carrara,  Italy, 
at  $1,500  per  column.  Nearly  all  the  work  was  done  hy  the 
day.  Captain  Meigs  superintended  the  work  and  Edward 
Clark,  assistant  superintendent,  received  $3  per  diem. 

The  office  of  Indian  affairs  was  created  by  the  Act  of  July 
9,  1832  ;  the  Treasury  was  given  a  Solicitor  in  May,  1830 ; 
the  Post-Office  obtained  an  Auditor  in  the  Treasury  in  1836.^ 
The  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States  was  created  Sept. 
24,  1789.  The  General  Land  Office  was  created  April  25, 
1872,  and  made  a  section  of  the  Treasury  Department.     • 

In  1836,  the  records  and  models  in  the  Patent  Office  were 
destroyed  by  fire,  on  the  15th  of  December.     The  following 


PATENT    OFFICE — SOUTH    FRONT. 

March,  Congress  made  legislation  compelling  the  recording  of 
all  patents  and  drawings,  and  models  were  in  all  proper  cases 
demanded  anew.  The  Patent  Office  goes  back  to  1790,  and 
between  1793  and  1836  the  Secretary  of  State  issued  patents 
subject  to  the  revision  of  the  Attorney-General.  Above  9,000 
patents  had  been  issued  up  to  1836,  but  the  loose  regulation 
led  to  many  infringements  and  much  litigation.  William 
Elliott,  writing  in  1837  of  the  destruction  of  the  archives  of 
the  Patent  Office,  said :  "  There  lie  the  ashes  of  the  records  of 
more  than  10,000  inventions  with  their  beautiful  models  and 
drawings.     There   lie  also,  smouldering  in  the  same  heap  of 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  293 

ruins,  the  elegant,  classical  correspondence  of  Dr.  Thornton 
with  the  most  of  the  ingenious  and  scientific  men  of  this 
country  and  of  Europe  for  upwards  of  23  years." 

The  Patent  Office  was  the  conception  of  two  surveyors  and 
engineers  of  Washington  City  who  lived  in  the  Jacksonian 
period,  Messrs.  Elliot  and  Town,  the  former  of  an  English 
family  notable  in  Washington  for  giving  hints  and  doing  con- 
scientious work.  According  to  a  legend  amongst  the  architects 
of  the  city  the  plan  was  Town's,  but  as  he  left  the  firm  the 
plan  was  usually  named  and  accepted  as  Elliot's.  The  site  of 
the  building  had  previously  been  a  nursery  for  trees  and  plants. 
In  1836,  Robert  Mills  was  made  architect  and  he  built  the 
sand-stone  portion  on  the  F  street  side  of  Acquia  Creek  "  free- 
stone." In  1851  Mr.  Walters  came  to  Washington,  with  the 
reputation  of  Girard  College  upon  him,  bringing  Mr.  Edward 
Clark  as  his  assistant.  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  S'eward,had 
become  dissatisfied  with  Mr.  Mills's  work  and  he  dismissed  that 
gentleman,  to  the  great  ado  of  the  period,  and  Mr.  Clark  was 
appointed  to  straighten  out  Mills's  beginnings  and  make  the 
windows  face  each  other  and  the  rooms  assume  some  rectangu- 
lar form.  The  Seventh  street  side  was  the  first  marble  part 
added,  and  the  whole  edifice  was  done  in  1867.  It  cost  $2,200,- 
000.     The  marble  came  from  Cockeysville,  Md. 

The  second  edifice  of  the  State  Department  was  occupied  in 
1836,  and  it  remained  until  the  close  of  the  civil  war,  but  the 
great  pile  of  the  Treasury  obliterated  it. 

Columbian  College  was  commenced  by  Rev.  Mr.  Rice  in  1819 
and  chartered  in  1821,  the  buildings  erected  and  the  institution 
opened  speedily  and  its  prosperity  was  exceptional  until  1826, 
when  its  officers  ran  it  in  debt  to  the  extent  of  $135,000.  Then 
followed  a  pinching  period,  wherein  the  debts  were  mainly 
paid  off,  but  the  College  lost  its  popularity.  The  Baptists  have 
generally  controlled  it. 

The  present  building  of  the  Columbian  Law  School  was  the  orig- 
inal Trinity  Episcopal  Church,  third  in  the  city  in  point  of  time, 
and  was  consecrated  May  11, 1829.     The  Third  Trinity  Church 


294  BUILDING   THE   VARIOUS   EDIFICES. 

was  designed  by  Renwick,  architect  of  the  Smithsonian  Insti- 
tute, and  opened  in  1857.  This  church  is  what  is  called  "  low" 
or  ultra  Protestant,  and  it  was  taken  possession  of  by  the 
Government  during  the  war. 

Old  Christ  Episcopal  Church  points  up  its  four  little  pinnacles 
near  the  Marine  barracks.  It  was  built  about  1806  and  the 
Society  had  been  in  existence  since  1795.  Jefferson  and  Madi- 
son were  regular  attendants  of  this  church,  and  the  Marines 
from  the  barracks  formerly  marched  every  Sunday  to  its  min- 
istrations. The  Congressional  burying  ground,  otherwise 
Washington  Parish  Cemetery,  belongs  to  this  plain,  crude  little 
cottage-windowed  edifice,  which  was  the  progenitor  of  nine 
other  parishes  in  Washington  City. 

The  First  Baptist  Church,  at  I  and  19th  streets,  was  begun 
in  1803,  and  finished  in  1809.  In  1810  the  Second  Baptist 
Church  was  constituted  near  the  Navy  Yard. 

The  Convent  of  the  Visitation  at  Georgetown,  was  founded 
by  Archbishop  Neale,  in  1798.  The  sisters  of  the  order  elect 
a  mother  superior  every  third  year,  eligible  for  only  two  con- 
secutive terms. 

The  Academy  of  the  Visitation  was  established  at  George- 
town, about  1808. 

St.  Patrick's  Church,  destroyed  in  1873,  was  built  in  1810 ; 
St.  Peters,  Capitol  Hill,  in  1821  ;  St.  Matthew's  Church,  in 
1839. 

The  First  Presbyterian  Churcli,  N  Street,  in  the  rear  of  Wil- 
lard's,  was  composed  of  persons  who  had  belonged  to  the  Asso- 
ciate Reformed  Church,  in  Philadelphia,  and  removed  with  the 
Capital.  It  received  a  pastor  in  1803,  and  the  congregation 
first  worshiped  in  the  Treasury  building.  The  Second  Church 
followed,  on  Capitol  Hill,  and  the  Third,  in  New  York  Avenue, 
was  instituted  in  1820.  At  the  latter  Mr.  Lincoln  wor- 
shiped. 

The  Methodist  Church,  in  Georgetown,  was  built  in  1806  ; 
the  Navy  Yard  Methodist  Church  in  1810  ;  the  Foundry  in 
1815. 


IMPROVEMENTS   IN  WASHINGTON.  295 

St.  John's  Episcopal  Church  was  built  from  the  gratuitously 
presented  designs,  and  under  the  eye,. of  B.  H.  Latrobc.  Orig- 
inally it  was  a  Greek  cross,  afterward  enlarged  to  the  Homan 
form,  and  endowed  with  a  tower.  It  was  consecrated  by 
Bishop  Kemp,  December  27,  1816. 

The  old  Unitarian  Church,  on  Louisiana  Avenue,  was 
designed  by  Bulfinch,  and  was  provided  with  a  bell  of  900 
pounds  weight,  cast  by  Air.  Revere,  in  Massachusetts. 

The  Penitentiary  of  the  district  was  established  at  Green- 
leafs  Point  after  1830. 

It  was  120  feet  by  50,  with  160  cells,  surrounded  by  a  wall 
800  feet  square  and  22  feet  high.  Charles  Bulfnich  designed 
it. 

The  present  jail  was  erected  in  1841,  near  by  its  predeces- 
sor.    A  new  jail  is  going  up  (1873)  at  the  Eastern  Branch. 

The  Washington  Arsenal  was  re-built  in  1815,  from  the 
designs  of  Colonel  George  Bomford.  Another  structure,  by 
Major  W.  Wade,  succeeded  this. 

In  1831  there  were  nine  banks,  in  the  ten  miles  square  : 
Bank  of  Washington,  ^479,000  capital  stock  ;  Metropolis, 
$500,000  ;  Patriotic,  $250,000  ;  Farmers'  and  Mechanics'^ 
$486,000  ;  Union  of  Georgetown,  $478,000  ;  Alexandria, 
$500,000  ;  Potomac  (Alexandria),  $500,000  ;  Mechanics' 
(Alexandria),  $372,000  ;  Farmers'  (Alexandria),  $310,000. 

The  debt  of  Washington  City  was  about  $800,000  in  1837. 

To  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal  the  State  of  Maryland 
subscribed  $5,000,000  ;  the  United  States,  $1,000,000  ;  Wash- 
ington City,  $1,000,000  ;  Georgetown,  Alexandria,  and  the 
State  of  Virginia,  $250,000  each.  Ground  was  broken  July  4, 
1828. 

The  greatest  freshet  on  the  Potomac,  of  which  there  is  any 
available  record,  occurred  in  1852,  raising  the  river  at  Chain 
Bridge  43  feet  ;  at  Aqueduct  Bridge,  10  feet  ;  and  at  the 
Arsenal  4  feet  9  inches.  The  flow  of  the  Potomac  river  was 
gauged  in  1863,  above  Great  Falls,  and  found  to  be  1,176,000,- 
000  imperial  gallons  for  twenty-four  hours,  exclusive  of  the 
supply  required  for  the  district.     The  canal  has  an  available 


296  WASHINGTON    HOTELS. 

fall,  above  Georgetown,  of  34  feet,  equal  to  11,000  horse 
power. 

At  the  time  of  the  Mexican  war  the  leading  hotels  stood  as 
follows,  starting  at  the  Capitol  gate  and  going  west : 

Gadsby's,  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  Third  street. 

Temperance  Hotel,  )  ^j^.^^  ^^^^^^  ^^^^^^^  Gadsby's. 

St.  Charles  Hotel,  ) 

United  States,   )  ^^^^^  ^^  p^  Avenue,  between  3d  and  4^. 

veranda,  ) 

Exchange,  C  street,  between  4 J  and  6. 

Coleman's,  Pa.  Avenue,  between  4J  and  6. 

Brown's,  Pa.  Avenue,  between  6  and  7. 

Fuller's,  Pa.  Avenue  and  14  st. 

European,  Pa.  Avenue,  between  14  and  15  street. 

During  the  Thirtieth  Congress,  the  following  notable  men 
resided  as  indicated  : 

Geo.  M.  Dallas,  at  Mrs.  Gadsby's,  President's  Square. 

John  C.  Calhoun,  Mrs.  Read's,  C  Street,  between  4^  and  6. 

Lewis  Cass,  Tyler's  Hotel. 

John  M.  Clayton,  Young's,  Capitol  Hill,  N.  J.  Av. 

Jefferson  Davis,  Mrs.  Owen's,  Capitol  Hill. 

Stephen  H.  Douglas,  Willard's  Hotel. 

A.  H.  Sevren,  Hill's,  Capitol  Hill. 

Daniel  Webster,  Pa.  Av.,  near  6th  St. 

John  Q.  Adams,  F  street,  bet.  13  and  14. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Mrs.  Sprigg's,  Capitol  Hill. 

At  the  time  of  the  rebellion  the  leading  hotels  were  as  fol- 
lows : 

At  Georgetown,  the  City  Hotel  and  Lang's  Hotel. 

On  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  Willard's,  Owen's,  Brown's, 
National,  Kirkwood,  Henry  Clay,  Victoria. 

On  Capitol  Hill,  Whitney's,  Caspar's  House. 

North  of  the  Avenue,  Hendon  House,  F  Street  ;  Pennsylva- 
nia House,  C  Street. 

The  National  Hotel  was  the  first  building  in  Washington,  of 


IMPROVEMENTS    IN   WASHINGTON. 


297 


large  dimensions,  for  public  accommodation,  a  few  rods  from 
Brown's,  or  the  Metropolitan.  Brown's  was  the  first  \  j  estab- 
lish a  bridal-chamber,  and  here  Kossuth's  compatriots  went  to 
bed  with  their  boots  and  hats  on,  after  getting  very  drunk  at 
the  National.  Clay  died  at  the  National,  and  Buclianan 
took  the  mysterious  sickness  there.  At  Brown's,  James  B. 
Clay,  Henry  Clay's  son,  was  struck  in  the  face  by  General 
Cullom,  of  Tennessee,  and  a  bloodless  duel  ensued  at  Bladens- 
burg,  in  1858. 


WILLARD  S    HOTEL. 

The  brothers  Willard,  of  Vermont,  had  the  largest  house  in 
the  city  when  the  war  began,  and  they  made  a  very  advantag- 
eous lease  of  it.  In  their  house  the  Peace  Convention  of  1861 
was  held.  That  hall  has  been  turned  by  Mr.  Cake,  the  new 
proprietor,  into  a  reading  and  music  room,  which  will  probably 
be  the  place  recherche,  as  the  young  men  with  pale  neckties  put 
it,  for  soft  and  non-percussion  theatricals. 

The  present  proprietor  of  Willard' s  belongs  to  the  race  of 
family  magistrates,  dignified,  industrious,  and  agreeable  as  a 
Bishop.     It  is  a  great  moral  advance,  if  no  more,  to  see  the 


298 


WASHINGTON   HOTELS. 


old,  tawdry  horse-racing  race  of  innkeepers  disappear,  and 
public  men  and  their  families,  and  patriotic  folks  who  visit  the 
Capitol,  receive  the  entertainment  of  quieter  and  more  demure 
and  responsible  hosts.  Persons  familiar  with  Washington 
hotels  will  be  interested  to  hear  that  the  new  Willard's  has  a 
grand  marble  and  walnut  office,  a  billiard-room  where  the  bar 
formerly  stood,  a  ladies  cafe  over  the  office,  where  used  to  be 
"  Camp  Sykes  "  (a  lumber  room),  and  the  long  and  gawky 
sitting-room  has  been  dissected,  and  half  of  it  made  a  ladies' 
promenade. 

The  Arlington  Hotel,  on  Vermont  Avenue,  is  celebrated 
over  the  country  for  the  elegance  of  its  apartments,  and  the 
experience  of  its  proprietors.  The  hotel  was  built  by  W.  W. 
Corcoran,  Esq.,  and  leased  to  Revesel  and  Sons,  of  Lake 
George,  for  $10,000  a  year.  The  waiters  wear  a  uniform,  and 
like  all  the  four  large  houses  of  Washington,  it  contains  an 
elevator. 


THE   EBBITT    HOUSE. 

The  Ebbitt  House  is  one  of  the  largest  and  decidedly  the 
best-looking  establishment,  architecturally,  at  the  Capital.  It 
arose  during  the  war,  and  became  celebrated  as  the  favorite 
headquarters  of  army  and  navy  officers,  and  was  extended  from 
time  to  time  to  meet  the  demands  upon  its  popularity,  until  in 
1872,  it  was  wholly  reformed  and  reconstructed.     It  is  now  a 


IMPROVEMENTS  IN   WASHINGTON.  299 

very  elegant  mansion,  six  stories  high  and  of  a  bright,  cheer- 
ful color,  which  lightens  the  spirits  of  the  guests  ;  from  every 
window  canopies  of  canvass  depend  to  cool  the  interior  through 
the  Summer ;  for  this  house,  unlike  several  in  Washington,  is 
kept  open  the  whole  year  round.  The  taste  of  the  proprietor, 
Caleb  C.  Willard,  Esq.,  is  displayed  in  the  elegant  French  pa- 
vilions, and  broken  lines  of  the  roof,  and  in  the  series  of  clas- 
sical window  mouldings,  which  liken  the  establishment  to  the 
purer  class  of  the  public  edifices.  The  new  dining-room  is 
made  to  include  two  entire  stories  in  height,  and  the  lofty  ceiling 
is  beautifully  frescoed,  while  the  windows  are  given  nearly  the 
loftiness  of  the  hall,  thus  bathing  the  apartment  in  the  exquisite 
light  of  this  latitude.  Beneath  the  dining-room  is  the  historic 
line  of  offices  known  over  the  whole  country  as  "  Newspaper  row." 
The  newspaper  correspondents  had  pitched  upon  this  block  before 
a  hotel  was  devised,  on  account  of  its  immediate  proximity  to 
the  telegrapli  offices,  the  Treasury,  all  the  lines  of  city  com- 
munication, and  as  it  was  centrally  situated  to  the  White 
House  and  the  great  departments.  When  the  Ebbitt  House 
-was  rebuilt  the  proprietor  reserved  the  basement  stage  for 
newspaper  offices,  and  for  the  length  of  the  whole  block,  lights 
can  be  seen  shining  at  every  night  in  the  week,  where  these  in- 
defatigable correspondents,  representing  the  active  press  of  the 
whole  country,  hang  out  their  signs  and  feed  the  telegraph  in- 
struments. On  notable  occasions.  Newspaper  Row  is  illumin- 
ated by  its  landlord.  The  Ebbitt  House  contains  the  largest 
rotunda  and  office  in  Washington  ;  it  has  an  elevator  and  300 
rooms,  and  there  is  not  a  prettier  piece  of  architecture  in 
Washington  than  its  ladies'  portico  and  rich  bay  window  at 
the  angle  of  the  building.  In  this  house  have  put  up  nearly 
all  the  eminent  sailors  and  soldiers  of  the  country :  Eogers, 
Farragut,  Worden,  Canby,  Thomas,  Porter,  Winslow,  Boggs, 
Case,  Drayton,  and  the  rest.  The  Ebbitt  House  set  the  exam- 
ple of  making  a  deduction  for  army  and  navy  officers  at  the 
close  of  the  war.  It  is  the  newest  hotel  production  at  the  na- 
tional Capitol. 


300  THE   MILITARY   HISTORY   OP  WASHINGTON. 

Speaking  of  the  army  and  navy  hotel,  suggests  the  capture 
of  Washmgton  in  1814,  and  the  military  history  of  the  city. 

Washington  had  few  military  traditions,  prior  to  the  late 
civil  war.  Observatory  hill  was  the  camping  and  landing- 
ground  of  Braddock,  Washington,  and  a  part  of  the  Britisli 
army,  April  11-14, 17T5,  and  as  Washington  was  at  this  time 
only  23  years  of  age,  he  may  have  paid  especial  attention  for  the 
first  time  to  the  beauty  of  the  situation.  A  neck  below  Observ- 
atory hill  was  often  designated  by  Peter  Force,  as  Braddock's 
landing  place.  This  hill  was  also  designed  to  be  the  site  of  a 
fort,  when  the  city  was  planned,  and  a  brigade  of  militia  en- 
camped upon  it,  August  23,  1814.  During  the  Revolution, 
troops  were  almost  constantly  crossing  Alexandria  and  George- 
town ferries.  Fort  Washington,  on  the  Potomac,  was  origi- 
nally Fort  Warburton,  and  at  the  time  of  the  war  of  1812,  it 
was  merely  a  water  battery,  with  a  block  house  on  the  hill 
above  it,  to  protect  it  from  being  taken  in  the  rear.  This  fort 
was  built  after  the  British  war,  and  strengthened  in  1861,  when 
Fort  Foote  was  also  laid  out  by  Major  Alexander.  Traces 
of  breastworks  exist  at  Whitestone  point  where  the  British 
vessels,  retiring  from  Washington,  were  cannonaded. 

Here  is  a  quaint  item  : 

July  10, 1814.  General  Wilkinson,  temporarily  suspended 
from  command  of  the  army,  made  a  tour  of  the  city  in  com- 
pany with  General  John  Mason,  of  Mason's  Island,  and  Charles 
Carroll,  of  Bellevue,  to  inform  them  of  his  plan,  in  the  last 
resort,  to  repel  a  British  surprise.  It  was  as  follows :  Two 
redoubts,  one  in  the  fork  of  the  Tiber  and  Potomac,  the  other  on 
theheightnorthof  the  Avenue  called  "  Davidson's  orchard  ;"  also 
the  fortification  of  the  Capitol  and  the  President's  house,  in  this 
way :  Of  the  Capitol,  by  ravelins,  to  connect  the  two  disconnected 
blocks  (wings)  and  round  towers  of  stone  up  the  angles,  with  loop- 
holes to  defend  the  extension-ends  of  the  blocks  ;  the  windows  to 
be  barricaded  with  loop-holes  for  musketry,  and  the  lower  floor  of 
the  Capitol^  as  well  as  the  ravelins,  to  be  sufficiently  furnished 


HVIPROVEMENTS  IN   WASHINGTON.  301 

with  ai'tillery,  and  the  preparation  of  the  President's  house  for 
the  reception  of  musketry  ;  competent  garrisons  for  the  several 
posts  to  he  detailed  and  held  in  readiness  to  occupy  them, 
should  it  become  necessary,  and  suitable  munitions  of  war  to 
be  previously  deposited  in  each.  It  was  also  practicable  to  ar- 
range for  the  defense  of  the  Navy  Yard. 

"Had  these  obvious,  economical  precautions  been  adopted," 
says  Wilkinson,  "  the  rival  ministers,  Monroe  and  Armstrong, 
would  not  have  been  exposed  to  the  humiliation  of  advising 
General  Winder,  when  he  reached  the  Capital,  to  rally  and  form 
his  troops  on  the  heights  in  the  rear  of  Georgetown." 

The  total  strength  of  the  United  States  soldiery,  of  various 
sorts,  at  the  battle  of  Bladensburg,  according  to  William  Elli- 
ott, was  8,049,  of  which  1,100  were  regular  infantry,  seamen,  and 
marines,  and  540  Yirginia,  Columbia,  Marylanxi,  and  regular 
dragoons.  The  whole  number  of  regulars,  including  seamen, 
was  1,240.  The  Americans  had  20  pieces  of  field  artillery. 
The  entire  British  force,  August  17, 1814,  was  3,500,  without 
artillery. 

This  is  sufficient  to  show  that  there  were  enough  men  on 
the  American  side  to  have  defended  the  city,  and  to 
blame  the  Administration,  was  probably  to  put  the  dis- 
grace upon  sacrificial  shoulders.  This  is  further  attested  by 
the  miserably  disproportionate  loss  of  life  on  the  American  side, 
as  estimated  by  the  importance  of  the  object  to  defend  and  the 
number  of  the  defenders — only  ten  men  were  killed  and  thirty 
wounded.  Lossing  says  twenty-six  were  killed  and  fifty-one 
wounded.  It  was  not  believed  by  good  observers  on  the  field 
of  battle,  that  the  British  brought  up  above  1,500  men.  Their 
loss  was  nearly  500  killed  and'  wounded.* 

The  following  buildings  were  destroyed  by  the  British  in 
1814 — the  unfinished  Capitol,  the  President's  house,  two  build- 

*Gcneral  Wilkinson's  estimate  is  64  killed  and  249  wounded,  on  the  British 
side,  and  10  horses  killed  and  8  wounded.  On  the  American  side,  8  men  killed, 
13  marines  wounded. 


302  WASHINGTON   DURING   THE   WAR. 

ings  containing  public  offices,  and  the  fort  at  Greenleaf  s  point, 
Mr.  Sewell's  house  on  Capitol  Hill,  Mr.  Carroll's  hotel  on  Cap- 
itol Hill,  General  Washington's  house  and  Mr.  Frost's  house, 
on  the  same  elevation  ;  work-shops  in  the  Navy  Yard  ;  a  sloop 
of  war  and  public  stores  ;  Fort  Washington,  and  two  bridges 
over  the  Eastern  Branch.  The  British  soldiers  and  the  run- 
away negroes  who  attended  them,  plundered  a  few  houses, 
amongst  them  Mr.  A.  McCormick's,  Mr.  D.  Rapine's,  and  Mr. 
Elliott's.  The  types  and  presses  of  Gales  &  Seaton  were  cast 
out  of  the  window. 

The  Potomac  was  first  crossed  in  the  rebellion  on  the  night 
of  May  23,  1861,*  in  three  columns  at  the  Georgetown  Aque- 
duct, the  Long  Bridge,  and  by  water  to  Alexandria.  The 
three  columns  were  commanded  respectively  by  Major  Wood, 
Major  Heintzelman,  and  Colonel  Ellsworth.  The  first  defences 
were  laid  out  by  General  Mansfield,  and  Captain  H.  G.  Wright 
next  day  at  Forts  Corcoran,  Runyon,  and  Ellsworth. 

For  seven  weeks  the  work  of  defining  and  throwing  up  works 
went  on,  until  the  three  forts  named  were  built,  and  also  Forts 
Bennett,  Haggerty,  and  Albany.  Fort  Runyon  exceeded  any 
of  the  subsequent  works.  After  the  disaster  of  Bull  Run,  the 
works  in  Virginia  were  immediately  connected,  strengthened, 
and  extended.  By  the  beginning  of  the  year  1862,  there  were  48 
forts  in  all,  23  south  of  the  Potomac,  14  (and  three  batteries) 
between  the  Potomac  and  the  Eastern  Branch,  and  11  forts  be- 
yond the  branch.  The  greater  portion  were  enclosed  works  of 
earth,  but  several  were  lunettes  with  stockaded  gorges.  In  Oc- 
tober, 1862,  Mr.  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War,  took  the  responsi- 
bility of  ordering  new  works,  and  he  appointed  a  commission 
consisting  of  Generals  Potter,  Meigs,  Barry,  Barnard,  and 
Cullum,  to  report  upon  those  already  completed.  They  reported 
ed  53  forts  and  22  batteries  with  643  guns  and  75  mortars 
mounted,  and  demanding  25,000  infantry  for  garrisons,  and 

*  The  hills  of  Maryland  opposite  Alexandria  were  filled  with  troops,  and  the 
gunboat  Pawnee  had  been  lying  for  weeks  in  the  channel,  when  on  the  24th  of 
May  that  outpost  of  the  rebellion  was  captured. 


IMPKOVEMENTS   IN   WASHINGTON.  303 

9,000  artillery  men.  Enormously  increased  works  were  built 
in  the  early  part  of  1863,  and  three  beautiful  "  semi-permanent 
field  works"  were  those  of  Fort  Whipple,  Fort  C.  F.  Smith,  and 
Fort  Foote.*  The  whole  system  of  works  was  strengthened 
in  1864,  and  in  July  of  that  year,  Early  advanced  within  sight 
of  them  and  retired. 

The  aggregate  length  of  good  military  roads  for  the  defences 
of  Washington  was  32  miles ;  the  circuit  of  defences  was  at 
least  37  miles.  The  Long  Bridge  was  reconstructed  by  the 
enemy  in  1861,  and  the  railroad  bridge  beside  it  was  built  by 
the  Engineers  also  in  1864. 

"  The  stone  piers  of  the  Aqueduct  are  works  of  the  highest 
class  of  engineering,  resting  on  bed  rock  20  to  30  feet  below 
the  surface  of  the  river." 

The  hired  labor  force  on  the  forts  was  at  its  greatest  in  1863, 
— 1,500  men,  wagons  trains  of  25  to  44  horse  teams  were  used. 
The  disbursements  for  hired  labor  and  material,  were  all  made 
by  James  Evelett,  and  amounted  to  more  than  one  million  of 
dollars.  No  compensation  was  paid  land  owners  for  injury, 
although  a  church,  many  dwellings,  and  many  orchards  were 
demolished. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  in  1865,  Washington  was  surrounded 
by  68  inclosed  forts  and  batteries  having  an  aggregate  perim- 
eter of  13  miles,  and  a  circuit  of  37  miles,  with  807  mounted 
guns,  and  98  mortars  and  implements  in  all  for  1521  guns. 
Compared  with  the  Torres  Yedras,  constructed  by  Wellington 
from  the  Tagus  to  the  sea,  which  cost  X 200,000,  the  works  of 
Washington  cost  $1,436,000,  and  exceeded  the  former  in  length 
of  circuit.  The  whole  line  from  the  Chickahominj;  Pine 
Works  in  1865  was  32J  miles  long. 

The  highest  fort  around  Washington  was  Gains,  403  feet 
above  mean  tide.  At  forts  Reno,  Totten,  and  Lincoln,  the 
heights  are  respectively  440,  330,  and  230  feet  above  the  tide. 
From  Fort  Meigs  to  Fort  Stanton,  the  ridge  is  about  300  feet 
high ;  the  Theological  Seminary  back  of  Alexandria  has  an 
elevation  of  400  feet  above  the  Potomac. 

*  Fort  Foote  is  still  occxxpied  ( 1 872). 


304  THE   GEOLOGY   OF   WASHINGTON. 

The  geology  of  Washington  is  peculiar :  at  the  head  of  tide 
water,  it  stands  amongst  the  vertically  stratified  metamorphic 
rocks  which,  varying  in  composition  from  hard  grains  to  soft 
mica  slate,  yield  unequally  to  degrading  action,  and  thus  pro- 
duce the  bold  headlands  and  deeply  excavated  valley  in  which 
the  land  terminates  at  the  margins  of  the  Potomac.  Overly- 
ing these  rocks  is  a  series  of  nearly  horizontal  beds  which 
form  the  various  distinctive  earth  masses  around  Georgetown, 
Washington,  and  Alexandria.  These  peculiar  sands  and  clays, 
with  their  fossil  woods,  belong  to  the  older  part  of  the  Atlantic 
cretaceous  formation.  The  underlying  metamorphic  rocks,  are 
only  exposed  on  Rock  Creek,  which  took  its  name  from  them. 
Northwest  of  the  city  may  be  seen  the  material  eroded  over 
the  sandstone  of  red  Seneca,  where  the  river  once  flowed  400 
feet  higher  than  now. 

Few  things  even  in  our  notable  time  have  come  up  with  more 
suddenness  than  Washington  City  since  the  abolition  of  slavery. 

At  the  close  of  the  contest  for  a  division  of  the  country,  it 
was  inevitable  that  there  should  have  been  such  an  agitation 
for  a  change  of  the  seat  of  government  as  followed  the  burning 
of  the  young  city  by  the  British  in  1814.  After  sixty-five  years 
of  preparation  Washington  seemed  to  be  still  unfinished  in  any 
part.  The  Capitol  was  not  done ;  the  President's  mansion  was 
out  of  repair ;  the  streets  were  generally  unpaved,  and  the 
social  chaos  following  the  war,  had  made  old  and  new  elements 
dissatisfied  with  their  associations,  and  despondent  about  the 
site. 

Nothing  seemed  so  necessary  to  Washington  as  a  good  fright- 
ening,* and  that  it  received  through  an  authority  sufficiently 
amusing  at  the  present  distance. 

A  red-bearded,  crippled,  Quilpish  looking  man  of  St.  Louis, 
Missouri, — ^by  name  Mr.  L.  Q.  Reavis, — with  a  certain  sense 
of  resistance  about  him  and  an  uncertain  sense  of  reformation, 
took  it  into  his  head  that  St.  Louis  had  been  slighted  and  ought 
to  be  the  Capital  of  the.  Government.  He  had  a  simple  nature, 
a  love  of  circulation  and  public  consideration,  and  some  hope^ 


IMPROVEMENTS  IN   WASHINGTON.  305 

of  autliortjiiip.  Perfectly  honest,  always  approachable,  always 
approaching,  loose  and  continuous  in  argument,  striking  high 
for  eminent  attention,  and  carrying  acquaintance  by  the  assidu- 
ity with  which  he  cultivated  it,  Mr.  Reavis  tested  to  extremities 
the  power  of  the  unit  of  citizenship  to  upset  the  Capital  City 
and  drag  it  away.  His  ingenuities  were  all  in  the  noblest 
nature  of  destructiveness.  He  had  very  little  to  propose  in 
the  way  of  reconstruction,  and  was  indifferent  whether  the  pub- 
lic edifice  should  be  carried  away  piecemeal  or  abandoned  to 
the  unworthy  people  on  the  Potomac.  But  it  happened  at  the 
moment  that  the  strength  of  the  dominant  party  in  the  West, 
the  fever  of  change,  the  opening  of  the  Pacific  railroad  and 
other  lines  to  the  extreme  frontier,  and  perhaps  more  than  all 
the  rising  agitation  on  the  subject  of  free  trade  which  the  West- 
ern free  traders  hoped  to  settle  in  their  favor  by  getting  Con- 
gress amongst  them,  gave  a  noisy  and  it  was  thought  a  favora- 
ble celebrity  to  Mr.  Beavis's  scheme.  Mr.  Horace  Greeley 
favored  the  removal  in  the  New  York  Tribune^  and  a  convention 
or  two  were  held  at  St.  Louis.  The  conservative  sense,  rever- 
ence and  thrift  of  the  nation  prevailed,  however,  and  Congress 
settled  the  question  by  voting  a  large  sum  of  money  to  begin 
a  grand  State  Department  at  Washington  which  should  cost 
several  millions.  The  city  itself  at  its  own  expense  put  on  a 
new  apparel,  and  the  national  appropriations  of  1872-3  were 
unusually  generous  and  even  excessive. 

After  the  peace  of  1865  a  little  timid  building  began  about 
the  city,  led  by  A.  R.  Shepherd,  a  native  of  the  District  who 
had  made  some  accumulations  while  the  armies  and  hospitals 
centred  here,  by  conducting  plumbing  and  gas  fitting  on  a  large 
scale.  He  put  up  several  Philadelphia  rows  of  brick  houses 
adjacent  to  the  old  Duddington  house  of  the  Carrolls  and  also 
erected  the  first  business  edifice  of  consequence  on  the  lower 
side  of  the  Avenue.  His  architect  was  Mr.  Cluss,  a  German, 
whose  domestic  architecture  has  given  Washington  a  style  of  its 
v^wn.  He  designed  the  central  market  house,  the  Franklin, 
Jefierson,Wallack  and  other  public  schools,  and  the  dwellings  of 


306  ARCHITECTS   OF   THE   VARIOUS   BUILDINGS. 

Jeffreys,  Hutchinson,  and  other  new  arrivals.  Walter  S.  West, 
a  Virginia  architect,  showed  his  skill  in  the  transformation  of 
the  old  Crawford  property  on  Highland  place  and  in  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  residences  of  Mr.  Schenck  and  Senator  Stewart. 
Ploughman  and  Starkweather  of  Philadelphia  designed  the 
Freedman's  bank,  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  Halls, 
and  the  quaint  row  of  dwellings  which  are  occupied  by  Speaker 
Blaine,  Fernando  Wood,  Senator  Buckingham,  and  Thomas 
Swann.  The  Howard  University  and  the  large  modern  man- 
sion of  George  Taylor  on  Vermont  Avenue,  were  designed  by 
Mr.  Searle  of  Rochester,  N.  Y.  Vernon  Row,  an  elegant  busi- 
ness block  on  the  Avenue,  was  the  plan  of  architect  Fraser. 
Mr.  A.  Grant  of  Wisconsin,  designed  the  block  of  lofty  brick 
on  East  Capitol  street.  A  Baltimore  architect  planned  the 
little  opera  house  near  the  central  market  and  the  Arlington 
hotel.  Marshal  Brown's  and  Mr.  Thompson's  brown  stone 
houses  on  I  street  were  by  F.  G.  Myers,  a  German.  Edward 
Clark  designed  Merrell's  and  Edmunds'  neat  houses  on  Massa- 
chusetts Avenue.  Prominent  builders  in  this  new  period  are 
Robert  I.  Fleming  of  Va.,  W.  H.  Baldwin,  Entwistle  and  Bar- 
ron, and  Edmonstone. 

It  has  been  mentioned  in  another  chapter  that  the  territorial 
government  expended  from  ten  millions  to  fourteen  millions  in 
1872 ;  three  new  bridges  were  thrown  across  Rock  Creek ; 
three  large  market  houses  were  partly  finished ;  a  new  city 
hall  was  designed  ;  a  reform  school  was  begun  ;  new  railroads 
and  depots  were  added  ;  new  school  houses  built  and  the  entire 
system  of  street  paving,  sewerage,  parks,  suburban  roads,  and 
street  railways  reformed  and  made  metropolitan.  Destiny 
seems  to  be  against  the  city  in  the  matter  of  commerce  and 
manufactures.  Factories  do  not  flourish  here  ;  the  great  glass 
works  near  the  observatory  which  were  so  long  successful  have 
fallen  into  decay,  but  rural  gardening  has  taken  the  start  and 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  some  day  Washington  will  be  fed  from 
the  fields  within  sight  of  its  hills. 

In  1871,  when  the  project  for  the  removal  of  the  Capital  was 


IMFROYEMENTS   IN    WASHINGTON.  307 

rife  in  the  Western  country,  two  members  of  Congress,  John 
Coburn,  of  Indiana,  and  Philetus  Sawyer  presented  a  minority 
report  in  favor  of  the  scheme.  Their  energies  came  to  naught, 
but  we  are  indebted  to  them  for  extracting  from  the  Treasury 
Department  a  very  complete  statement  of  the  cost  of  Wash- 
ington City  and  of  the  District  to  the  taxpayers  of  the  United 
States.  These  have  amounted  in  gross  to  above  forty-five  and 
one-half  millions  of  dollars  in  three  qyarters  'of  a  century. 
To  make  this  grand  fcotal  every  possible  appropriation  and  in- 
vestment in  the  District  was  brought  out,  inclusive  of  several 
uncompleted  edifices,  some  of  which  will  not  be  wholly  built 
until  about  1876.  By  that  time  we  may  safely  assume  that 
the  expenditures  of  the  Federal  Government  in  the  district 
will  have  been  hard  upon  sixty  millions  of  dollars. 


CHAPTER    XYIII. 


A  RECORD  OP  HISTORIC  EVENTS  IN  THE  DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA  FROM 

1861  TO  1876. 

1861.  Jan.  4.  Mrs.  Robert  Anderson  passes  through 
Washington  to  join  her  husband  in  Fort  Sumpter.  Returns 
Jan.  9,  and  stops  at  Willard's  Hotel. 

1861.  Jan.  5.  The  South  Carohna  Commissioners  leave 
the  city.  Cockades  of  both  zones  blossom  in  hundreds  of  hat- 
bands. Captain  Charles  P.  Stone  organizes  the  militia  and 
troops  in  the  district.  Fourteen  Senators,  amongst  them  Jef- 
erson  Davis,  caucus  in  Washington,  to  form  themselves  into  a 
directory,  and  take  control  of  the  South. 

1861.  Jan.  12.  The  Gulf  State  Congressmen  and  Sena- 
tors begin  to  withdraw  from  Congress. 

Jan.  21st.     Jefferson  Davis  withdraws. 

February  4th.     Slidell  and  Benjamin  withdraw. 

1861.  Feb.  4.  The  Peace  Convention  meets  at  Willard's 
Hall,  on  F  St.,  John  Tyler  presiding  ;  adjourns  March  1st. 

1861.  Feb.  23.  President  Lincoln,  accompanied  by  Ward 
Lamon  and  Norman  Judd,  arrive  at  the  Washington  depot,  at 
daylight,  and  are  received  by  Elihu  Washburne  ;  he  goes  to 
Willard's  Hotel,  where  Mr.  Seward  meets  him. 

On  the  27th,  the  Mayor  and  Council  wait  on  the  President- 
Qlect. 


HISTORIC    EVENTS.  '  309 

1861.  March  4tli.  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Buchanan,  in  a 
carriage,  with  Senators  Pearse  and  Baker,  proceed  to  the 
Capitol,  flanked  by  troops  on  the  parallel  streets.  Chief-Jus- 
tice Taney  administers  the  oath. 

1861.  March  5.  Three  Confederate  Commissioners  arrive, 
and  stop  at  Willard's. 

1861.     April  — .     Mayor  James  G.  Barrett  arrested. 

1861.  April  13.  The  Virginia  Commissioners  meet  the 
President. 

1861.  April  18.  The  Cassius  M.  Clay  battalion  organized 
at  Willard's  Hall,  and  given  arms  to  patrol  the  city.  The 
Capitol  and  Treasury  guarded  by  howitzers.  Five  volunteer 
companies  from  Pennsylvania  and  forty  regulars  arrive  at  the 
depot,  in  all  530  men.  They  are  quartered  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  ;  the  same  evening  Harper's  Ferry  armory 
destroyed. 

1861.     April  19.     The  Massachusetts  Sixth  arrives. 

1861.  April  20.  Seizure  of  telegraph  despatches,  followed 
by  the  weeding  of  the  disloyal  out  of  the  Departments. 

1861.  April  21.  Eobert  E.  Lee  leaves  Arlington  House 
for  Richmond,  to  offer  his  services  to  the  State  of  Virginia. 

1861.  April  25.  Arrival  of  the  Seventh  New  York  Regi- 
ment ;  two  other  regiments  arrive  next  day. 

1861.  May.  All  the  public  buildings  filled  with  troops  and 
the  Glacis  converted  into  bakeries. 

1861.  May  1.  Lieut.  Tompkins  raids  through  Fairfax  Court 
House. 

1861.  May  11.  Washington  severed  from  the  North  by 
the  burning  of  bridges  north  of  Baltimore. 

1861.  May  18.  A  Confederate  flag  seen  on  the  Virginia 
heights. 

1861.  May  25.  Colonel  Ellsworth's  body  embalmed  at  the 
Navy  Yard. 

1861.  June  16.  Confederate  soldiers  seen  at  Chain  Bridge 
and  High  Point  ;  Vienna  and  Falls  Church  occupied. 

1861.     July  4.     A  special  session  of  Congress  is  held. 


310  HISTORIC    EVENTS. 

1861.  July  9.  One  hundred  and  sixty-one  millions  appro- 
priated to  carry  on  the  war. 

1861.     July  15.     McDowell's  army  advances. 

1861.  July  21.  All  the  horses  and  vehicles  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia  seized  to  bring  in  the  wounded.  Hospitals 
hnprovised. 

1861.  July  25.  McClellan  makes  headquarters  in  Wasli- 
ington,  at  the  head  of  50,000  infantry  and  thirty  pieces  of 
cannon,  the  city  fortified,  and  the  army  recruited  and  reorgan- 
ized. 

1861.  October  1st.  The  Potomac  blockaded  for  nearly  six 
months  after  this  date. 

1861.  October  15.  The  city  circumvallated  by  earthworks  ; 
seventy  thousand  men  armed  and  disciplined  ;  the  Potomac 
picketed  from  Liverpool  Point  to  Williamsport  ;  great  reviews 
in  September  and  October,  opposite  Wasliington. 

1861.  October  17.  The  Confederates  again  fall  back  to 
Centreville. 

1861.  Oct.  25.  General  Baker's  dead  body  brought  from 
Ball's  Bluff  to  Washington. 

1861.  Dec.  20.     Fight  at  Drainsville,  near  Washington. 

1862.  Street  railroad  laid  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue. 
1862.     March  10.     McClellan   advances   to   Manassas  and 

Warrenton  Junction. 

1862.  April  1st.  McClellan  descends  the  Potomac,  leaving 
18,000  men  in  garrison,  and  20,000  in  Virginia  around  Man- 
assas. 

1862.  June  28.  General  Pope  takes  command  of  the 
forces  before  Washington,  and  takes  the  field  July  29th. 

1862.  Sept.  1st.  Battle  of  Chantilly,  and  return  of  the 
army  to  the  fortifications  of  Washington. 

1862.  Sept.  4th.  The  Confederates  cross  the  Potomac  40 
miles  above  Washington. 

1862.  Sept.  7th.  The  Army  of  the  Potomac,  87,000 
strong,  moves  north  of  Washington.     Battle  of  Antictam. 

1862.  Dec.  31st.  Burnside  recalled  to  Washington,  from 
before  Fredericksburg,  and  removed  from  his  command. 


HISTORIC   EVENTS.  311 

1863.  Jan.  1.  President  Lincoln  proclaims  emancipation 
from  Washington. 

1863.  Washington  Fire  Department  organized  ;  it  consist- 
ed in  1873,  of  five  steamers,  six  hose  carriages  and  tWo  trucks, 
a  fire-alarm  telegraph  and  twenty-eight  horses.  Annual  ex- 
pense 180,000. 

1863.  Mar.  8.  John  S.  Mosby  dashes  into  Fairfax  and 
captures  Colonel  Stoughton  ;  the  Confederate  draft  enforced 
in  counties  opposite  W^ashington. 

1863.  June  16.  Hooker's  army,  defeated  at  Chancellors- 
ville,  falls  back  to  Fairfax. 

1864.  July  6.  The  Sixth  Corps,  under  General  Ricketts, 
passes  through  Washington  northward. 

1864.  July  9th.  The  battle  of  Monocacy,  for  the  defence 
of  the  city,  with  a  Federal  loss  of  2,000. 

1864.  July  12th.  Battle  at  Silver  Springs,  with  a  loss  of 
600  men  on  each  side  ;  Early  re-crosses  the  Potomac. 

1865.  April  10.  President  Lincoln  returns  to  Washington 
from  Richmond  ;  the  city  illuminated. 

1865.     April  14.     General  Grant  arrives. 

1865.  April  15.  Death  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  the  house  of 
Mr.  Peterson,  opposite  Ford's  theatre. 

1865.  May.  Grand  review,  for  two  days,  of  the  armies  of 
Grant  and  Sherman. 

1865.  July  7.  Mrs.  Surratt,  Payne  (or  Powell),  Harold, 
and  Atzerodt  hanged  in  the  yard  of  the  old  penitentiary, 
Greenleaf  s  Point. 

1865.  Nov.  10.  Henry  Wirz,  the  Andersonville  jailer, 
hanged,  in  the  rear  of  the  house  where  Calhoun  died,  and 
which  w^as  called  "  The  old  Capitol." 

1865.  Dec.  Only  35  votes  are  cast  in  favor  of  negro  suf- 
frage in  the  District  ;  7,369  against. 

1866.  June  3.  Calvary  Baptist  Church  dedicated  ;  burned 
December  15th,  1867. 

1867.  March  7th.  President  Johnson  vetoes  the  District 
of  Columbia  suffrage  bill,  but  it  is  passed  over  the  veto  by  more 
than  two-thirds  of  each  House 


812  HISTORIC     EVENTS. 

1869.  December  24.  Death  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  at  his 
home,  on  Franklin  square. 

1869.     Completion  of  the  Howard  University  for  freedmen. 

1871.  •  Feb.  20,  21.  Grand  Carnival  and  Masquerade  on 
the  completion  of  the  wood  pavement  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue 
from  the  Treasury  to  the  Capitol  ;  the  same  day  the  President 
signs  the  bill  making  a  Territorial  Government  for  the  District 
of  Columbia,  with  a  Governor  and  Council,  a  House  of  Dele- 
gates and  a  Delegate  in  Congress. 

1872.  Opening  of  the  Baltimore  and  Potomac,  and  Washing- 
ton, Alexandria  and  Fredericksburg  Railroads. 

1872-3.  Complete  rehabilitation  and  reformation  of  the 
city,  at  a  cost  to  the  taxpayers  of  eight  millions,  and  to  the 
Government  of  four  millions.  Commencement  of  the  new 
State  Department. 

1873.  May  12.  Salmon  P.  Chase  interred  at  the  Oak  Hill 
Cemetery,  Georgetown.     Services  in  the  Capital. 

1873.  May  26.  Opening  of  the  Metropolitan  branch  rail- 
road to  Point  of  Rocks, 

1873.  Sept.  The  sum  of  fifteen  millions  five  hundred 
thousand  dollars  in  gold,  awarded  to  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  to  pay  to  its  citizens  for  losses  incurred  by  the 
depredations  of  the  Alabama  and  other  Anglo-Confederate 
vessels,  was  paid  into  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States. 

1874.  March  11.  Charles  Sumner  of  Massachusetts,  died 
suddenly. 

1875.  Nov.  Yice-President  Wilson  stricken  with  apoplexy, 
and  after  lingering  a  few  days,  died. 

1876.  March.  General  Babcock,  the  President's  private 
secretary,  on  trial  and  acquitted,  for  complicity  in  the  whiskey 
frauds. 


CHAPTEE  XIX. 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES   OF   THE   OLD   AND   NEW   IN   WASHINGTON. 

If  we  ever  have  a  literature  in  America,  much  of  it  must 
illustrate  the  government  and  collateral  society  at  the  national 
capital.  Many  agreeable  pens  have  been  at  work  jotting  down 
the  materials  for  this  work,  and  it  would  be  an  oversight  in  our 
book  to  say  nothing  of  the  old  families  and  the  new  in  the  city 
by  the  Potomac. 

It  is  already  hard  to  realize  with  precision  and  picturesque- 
ness  the  state  of  social  life  and  living  which  existed  in  the 
early  days  of  our  Capital.  The  city  has  found  it  necessary  in 
the  course  of  improvement  to  take  out  of  the  landscape  many 
familiar  forms  and  vistas  which  will  belong  to  the  biographer, 
novelist,  and  poet  of  that  great  period  in  letters  which  must  be 
approaching. 

Amongst  the  local  landmarks  of  the  District  of  Columbia 
which  have  been  recently  obliterated  in  the  leveling  processes 
of  the  new  corporation,  are  the  mound  and  stone  to  mark  the 
centre  of  the  ten  miles  square,  set  up  by  Andrew  Ellicott,  in 
1791.  Gen.  Babcock  said  he  thought  it  was  merely  the  base 
of  a  derrick  to  hoist  things  to  the  Washington  Monument. 

The  other  landmark  was  the  Yan  Ness  Mausoleum,  in  which 
was  buried  David  Burns,  the  Scotch  farmer  who  owned  the 
ground  on  which  the  most  popular  part  of  Washington  stands. 
This  fine  old  relic  (see  cut  below)  was  taken  down  in  the  latter 
part  of  1872,  to  give  room  for  a  new  alley.     It  stood  between 

14 


314  A   QUAINT   TALE. 

the  Church  of  the  Ascension  and  an  Orphan  Asyhim,  on  II 
street  near  Ninth, — the  ground  for  both  of  which  was  presented 
by  Mrs.  Yan  Ness,  or  Marcia  Burns,  daughter  of  the  Scotch 
farmer  aforesaid. 

As  to  this  family  there  is  a  quaint  tale  which  may  be  worth 
telling : 

David  Burns  was  a  farmer  at  the  river-side  behind  the  Pres- 
ident's Mansion,  who  had  been  fortunate  enough,  under  the  law 
of  primogeniture  prevailing  in  tlie  Province  of  Maryland,  to 
inherit  his  father's  property,  to  the  exclusion  of  his  kin.  He 
was  a  positive  old  fellow,  and  annoyed  Washington  very  much 
when  the  President  sought  to  "  locate  the  Capital  City  upon 
his  farm."  "The  obstinate  Mr.  Burns,"  as  Washington  called 
him,  will  be  the  subject  of  portraiture  often  in  the  future,  stick- 
ling for  the  largest  equity  and  conditions,  and  paying  little 
relative  respect  to  the  opinion  of  the  General,  whom  he  once 
declared  to  be  of  eminence  chiefly  on  the  score  of  having  mar- 
ried the  rich  widow  Custis. 

Burns  had  a  daughter,  as  well,  whoso  prospective  wealth  in 
Washington  City-lots  was  to  make  another  man  historic.  This 
was  Marcia  Burns,  a  fairly-educated,  fair-looking,  clear-headed 
young  woman,  the  only  child  of  the  crusty  David.  When  the 
Congressmen  settled  on  the  agueish  site  of  the  new  city,  and 
found  the  distances  too  magnificent  for  patience,  they  sought 
relief  from  poor  lodgings  by  visiting  the  Carrolls,  Calverts, 
Taylors,  Laws,  Peters,  Lloyds,  Keys,  and  others  ;  and  imme- 
diately there  was  a  courteous  contest  for  the  hand  and  fortune 
of  Davy  Burns'  child.  The  Congressmen  filled  the  long,  low, 
one-story-and-garret  farm-house  of  nights,  and  the  most  assid- 
uous and  good-looking  of  them  all  was  John  P.  Yan  Ness,  of 
New  York.  They  all  besieged  Miss  Marcia  Burns,  and  she 
followed  the  rule  of  choosing  trumps  when  in  doubt.  She 
beamed  upon  the  handsome  Dutch  member. 

John  P.  Yan  Ness  was  now  past  30,  and  the  son  of  a  celebra- 
ted New  York  anti-Federalist  and  Revolutionary  officer,  Judge 
Peter  Yan  Ness.     His  father  was  a  supporter  of  Aaron  Burr 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES. 


315 


against  the  Livingston  and  Clinton  interest ;  and  William  P.  Yan 
Ness,  liis  brother,  "  that  talented  man,  of  dark  and  indignant 
spirit,"  as  Jabez  Hammond  says,  was  Burr's  second  in  the  duel 
with  Hamilton,  and  afterwards  secreted  Burr  in  the  family  home 
of  Kinderhook,  where  subsequently  Irving  wrote  a  part  of  his 
Knickerbocker's  History,  and  Martin  Van  Buren  raised  cab- 
bages and  smiled  on  Nature. 

The  elder  Yan  Ness  sent  Aaron  Burr,  recently  United  States 
Senator,  to  sound  the  young  woman  Burns,  and  ascertain  the 
degree  of  her  worldly  wisdom  and  her  father's  worldly  pros- 
pects. Burr,  always  plastic  in  match-makings,  reported  in  an 
exalted  strain  upon  Miss  Marcia's  strength  of  mind  and  prob- 
abilities, and  thus  Columbia  County,  New  York,  and  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  united  tlicir  leading  families. 

The  groom  had  been  educated  at  Columbia  College,  New 
York,  and  was  of  such 
equal  spirits,  that,  till 
death,  he  retained  all 
his  popularity  in 
Washington,  and 
"filled  all  the    high 
offices  that   the  citi- 
zens  of  Washington 
had  the  power  to  be- 
stow upon  him."    His        marcia  burns.  van  ness. 
bride  was  equal  to  her  alliance,  and  kept  a  tender  memory  in 
Washington  long  after  her  obstinate  father  was  laid  in  the 
Cave  of  Macpelah. 

For  a  little  time  the  bridal  party  inhabited  old  Burns's  cot- 
tage, still  standing  at  the  foot  of  Seventeenth  street.  Next, 
Mr.  Yan  Ness  built  a  two-story  brick  house  on  the  corner  of 
Twelfth  and  D  streets.  The  city  lots  selling  well,  and  money 
being  unstinted,  Yan  Ness  next  erected,  right  beside  old  Burns's 
cottage,  a  great  brick  mansion,  still  perfect,  and  inhabited 
now  by  Thomas  Green,  the  son-in-law  of  the  elder  Ritchie,  the 
celebrated  Richmond  editor.     This  great  house  was  designed 


316 


THE   VAN   NESS   MANSION. 


by  the  architect  Latrobe,  and  it  cost  about  $50,000,  upwards 
of  half  a  century  ago.  The  country-place  of  the  bridal  couple 
was  meantime  the  "  Glebe,"  situated  in  Virginia,  not  many 
miles  from  Washington,  where  they  possessed  1,500  acres,  part 
of  which  is  now  owned  by  Caleb  Gushing.  In  1865  the  man- 
sion on  "  The  Glebe"  burned  down. 


VAN  NESS   MANSION,   AND  DAVY  BURNS  8  COTTAGE. 

It  is  customary  to  refer  to  Bums  as  a  common  old  fellow, 
but  he  appears  to  have  used  the  first  moneys  derived  from  the 
sale  o£  his  land  and  lots  to  educate  his  daughter  in  a  manner 
to  fit  her  for  the  exalted  company  expected  on  the  site  of  his 
farm.  Seven  or  eight  years  elapsed  between  this  good  fortune 
and  her  marriage. 

A  copy  of  the  funeral  discourse  of  Rev.  William  Hawley, 
(Nicholas  Callan's  copy),  rector  of  St.  John's  Church,  deliver- 
ed on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  Mrs.  Van  Ness,  1832,  is  in 
possession  of  W.  H.  Philip,  Esq.  Parts  of  this  discourse  say_ 
as  follows  :  * 

"  She  survived  her  only  child,  Mrs.  Ann  E.  Middleton. 
Born  on  the  spot  on  which  she  expired,  the  whole  of  Mrs.  Van 
Ness's  life  had  been  passed  in  witnessing  the  beginning,  the 
rise,  and  progress  of  this  flourishing  metropolis.  She  was 
placed  by  her  parents  in  the  family  of  Luther  Martin,  Esq.,  of 


ROCIAL   SKETCHES.  317 

Baltimore,  who  was  then  at  the  liftight  of  his  fame  as  the  most 
distinguished  jurist  and  advocate  in  the  State  of  Maryland,  and 
with  his  daughters  and  family  she  had  the  best  opportunity  of 
education  and  society.*  At  the  age  of  twenty  she  was  married 
to  the  '  present  worthy  mayor  of  our  Capital.' 

"In  early  life,'*  continues  the  clergyman,  "  she  had  great 
sprightliness  of  mind  and  amiableness  of  disposition.  The  se- 
dateness  of  her  manner  gave  her  dignity,  and  the  genuine  piety 
of  her  heart  became  her  rule  of  life,  when  her  daughter  had  been 
born  and  educated.  This  daughter  returned  from  boarding- 
scliool  at  the  time  the  splendid  dwelling  on  Mansion  square  was 
prepared  for  the  reception  of  the  family.  Leaving  the  cottage 
which  stands  at  hand,  and  under  whose  humble  roof  she  had  been 
born  and  nurtured,  Mrs.  Van  Ness  witnessed  the  subsequent 
marriage  of  her  daughter.  But  in  November,  -1822,  the  bride 
who  had  been  but  a  few  months  before  '  attired  in  nuptial 
dress,  adorned  with  jewels  and  surrounded  with  gay  attend- 
ants,' plighted  her  vows,  was  consigned,  with  her  infant,  to 
the  grave. 

^'-  From  this  period  Mrs.  Yan  Ness  seemed  to  have  bid  the 
world  and  all  its  gaieties  farewell.  She  endowed  an  orphan 
asylum  with  $4,000  in  real  property,  left  it  by  will  $1,000— 
the  legacy  an   old  friend,  widow  of  Governor  Blount,  of  North 

*  Luther  Martin  married  a  daughter  of  Col.  Cresap,  of  Maryland,  long  the 
reputed  slayer  of  the  family  of  Logan,  the  Indian  chief.  Martin  was  a  shiftless 
genius,  who  had  been  born  at  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey,  in  1 744,  and  re- 
moved, in  1762,  to  the  little  Eastern  shore  Maryland,  part  of  Queenstown, 
where  he  studied  law  and  taught  school  until  1770.  He  was  a  protege  of 
Judge  Samuel  Chase,  and  in  1778  became  Attorney-General  of  Maryland,  dis- 
tinguishing himself  by  prosecuting  tories.  In  1804  he  defended  Judge  Chase, 
in  the  unfinished  capital.  Burr  presiding,  in  a  speech  pronounced  "  wonder- 
ful "  at  the  period.  In  1807  he  defended  Aaron  Burr,  at  Richmond,  and 
lost  his  popularity  in  Maryland  for  years.  Intemperance  grew  upon  him, 
and  he  became,  at  last,  a  guest  of  Buit's  banished  years,  and  died  in  1826. 
Chief  Justice  Taney  describes  him  as  a  rambling  talker,  with  slovenly 
rhetoric,  using  vulgarisms,  but  fair  and  weighty  in  argument,  and  wearing 
ruffles  at  the  wrist,  richly  edged  with  lace,  but  dabbled  and  soiled,  and  with 
rich  clothes  unbrushed,  and  intoxication  often  paramount. 


818  SKETCH   OF  THE   HEIRESS. 

Carolina, — and  labored  witti  Congress  for  its  further  endow- 
ment of  $10,000.  She  attended  the  church  and  Sunday  School 
in  this  church  constantly,  and  sought  out  orphans  with  a 
mother's  yearning.  The  old  cottage  house  in  which  she  was 
born  and  in  which  her  beloved  parents  ended  their  days,  was 
an  object  of  her  deep  veneration  and  regard.  In  this  humble 
dwelling,  over  whose  venerable  roof  wave  the  branches  of  trees 
planted  by  her  dear  parents,  she  had  selected  a  secluded  apart- 
ment, with  appropriate  arrangements  for  solemn  meditation,  to 
which  she  often  retired,  and  spent  hours  in  quiet  solitude  and 
holy  communion.  Her  sickness  was  long  and  painful.  A  few 
days  before  the  end  she  celebrated  the  sacrament  with  a  few  of 
her  Christian  friends  around  her  bed.  She  bade  all  the  several 
members  of  the  family  an  affectionate  farewell,  and  on  parting 
with  her  dear  husband,  while  he  kneeled  by  her  dying  bed,  she 
said,  with  her  hand  upon  his  head  :  '  Heaven  bless  and  protect 
you  ;  never  mind  me.'  " 

The  funeral  took  place  Monday,  September  10,  at  4  P.  M. 
The  mahogany  coffin  was  covered  with  black  velvet,  and  orna- 
mented with  a  silver  plate,  on  which  was  engraved  her  name, 
the  day  of  her  birth,  marriage,  and  death.  A  leaden  coffin  was 
inside  tho  wooden  one.  Another  plate,  the  gift  of  citizens  who 
had  held  a  meeting  of  condolence  at  the  "  Western  Town 
House,"  referred  to  her  piety,  charity,  and  worth,  and  it  was 
fastened  on  the  coffin,  "  a  little  below  the  former."  It  told 
the  story  thus  :  "  Born  9th  May,  1782.  Married  9th  May, 
1802.     Died  9th  Sept.  1832." 

The  Mausoleum  had  been  erected  some  years  previously. 
Her  hearse  and  family  carriage  (coach  and  four)  were  dressed 
in  mourning.  Little  female  orphans,  in  divided  ranks,  march- 
ed to  the  bier  and  strewed  it  with  branches  of  the  weeping 
willow. 

A  poem  in  the  Globe,  by  H.  G.,  (Horatio  Greenough  ?), 
said  : 

"  Mid  rank  and  -wealtli  and  worldly  pride, 
From  every  snare  she  turned  aside. 

«  «  !|C  «  »  « 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  319 

Slie  sought  the  low,  the  humble  shed, 
Where  gaunt  disease  and  famine  tread. 
And  from  that  time  in  youthful  pride, 
She  stood  Van  Ness's  blooming  bride, 
No  day  her  blameless  head  o'er  past, 
But  saw  her  dearer  than  the  last." 

After  Yan  Ness  had  been  a  Bank  President,  Militia  Com- 
mander,  and  what  not,  he  died  several  years  after  his  wife. 
He  had  provided  a  tomb,  unrivaled  in  the  New  World,  a  copy 
of  a  temple  of  Vesta,  where  the  Burns  and  the  Van  Ness  alli- 
<>?>^  v^T^x  ance  should  be  monument- 
■^^\  ally  inurned.  This  tomb  was 
constructed  of  stone,  and 
was  an  open  dome,  with  stone 
pillars,  and  a  deep  vault  be- 
neath it,  eight  feet  in  depth, 
with  three  tiers  of  cells,  six 
cells  to  the  tier.  Mr.  Edward 
Clark,  architect  of  the  Cap- 

VAN  NESS   MAUSOLEUM.  J^ol,    told    Col.   W.  H.    PMlip, 

who  recently  removed  and  set  up  the  Mausoleum,  that  it  was 
one  of  the  few  tombs  strictly  monumental  in  the  country, 
and  that  the  material  in  it,  and  the  fashioning  of  them,  would 
cost,  at  the  present  time,  $^34,000.  They  took  the  structure 
down,  and  have  re-built  it  precisely  as  it  was,  in  Oak  Hill 
Cemetery,  Georgetown.  Underneath  it  they  found  seven 
bodies,  viz.  : 

1.  David  Burns, — a  few  bones,  and  a  skull  and  teeth,  and 
the  relics  of  an  old-fashioned  winding-sheet,  which  wrapped 
the  defunct  around  and  around,  as  if  afraid  he  might  get  out 
of  it,  as  out  of  some  other  bad  bargain.  The  undertaker  of  the 
latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  looked  at  this  winding- 
sheet  as  if  he  were  stumped  at  last.  It  was  too  much  for 
him. 

2.  Mrs.  Burns,  wife  of  David.  On  this  lady  history  is 
silent. 


320  THE   VAN   NESS   FAMILY. 

3.  Gen.  Yan  Ness.  A  fine  old  body,  who  sued  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  for  violating  its  agreement  with  the 
original  proprietors  of  Washington  in  the  matter  of  selling  to 
private  purchasers  lots  near  the  Mall.  He  was  beaten,  although 
he  had  Roger  B.  Taney  for  counsel.  He  gave  an  annual  en- 
tertainment to  Congress,  and  his  six  horses,  headless,  are  said 
to  gallop  around  the  Yan  Ness  mansion  annually,  on  the  anni- 
versary of  his  death.  I 

4.  Marcia  Yan  Ness,  heiress  of  Washington.  Mrs.  Yan 
Ness's  portrait  is  at  the  Orphan  Asylum,  and  at  Colonel 
Philip's  residence  ;  a  sweet,  thin  Scotch  face,  with  gleaming, 
dewy  eyes,  crowned  with  a  lace  cap. 

5.  Mrs.  Ann  E.  Middleton,  only  child  of  John  P.  and  Marcia 
Yan  Ness  ;  married  Arthur  Middleton,  son  of  a  signer  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  ;  she  died  in  childbirth,  and  Mid- 
dleton married  for  his  second  wife  a  daughter  of  General  Ben- 
tevolia,  of  Rome. 

6.  General  Montgomery,  a  relative  of  the  family. 

7.  Gov.  Cornelius  P.  Yan  Ness,  ex-Collector  of  the  Port  of 
New  York,  Chief  Justice  and  Governor  of  Yermont,  and  for 
nine  years  Minister  to  Spain.  He  was  the  father  of  Mrs. 
Judge  Roosevelt,  of  New  York  City,  and  of  Lady  Ouseley,  wife 
of  Sir  William  Ouseley,  Secretary  of  the  British  Legation,  who 
was  married  at  the  Yan  Ness  mansion. 

The  square  on  which  the  Mausoleum  stood  sold  for  $160,000 
not  many  years  ago,  and  the  proceeds  went  to  the  Bente- 
volia  alliance. 

The  heirs  of  John  P.  Yan  Ness  were  three,  in  equal 
parts  : 

1.  One-third  to  Mrs.  Philip,  whose  son  is  W.  H.  Philip, 
Esq.,  of  Washington  City. 

2.  One-third  to  Gov.  C.  P.  Yan  Ness. 

3.  One-third  to  the  heirs  of  Judge  W.  P.  Yan  Ness,  Burr's 
friend. 

Of  this  celebrated  estate  there  arc  still  many  lots  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  heirs  of  the  above. 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  321 

General  Yan  Ness  lived  down  to  the  period  of  the  Mexican 
war,  attaining  tlie  ripe  age  of  seventy-six.  He  became  the 
first  President  of  the  Bank  of  the  Metropolis  in  1814.  Several 
portraits  are  extant  of  him.  In  one  he  is  represented  as  wear- 
ing a  powdered  wig  and  toupee  with  very  light,  fine,  brown  hair 
and  side-whiskers,  with  a  short  forehead,  and  strong  perceptive 
brows,  very  full  and  memory-keeping,  a  fine,  aquiline  nose, 
straight  lip  and  chin,  and  small  mouth  and  a  fine,  hazel,  open 
eye  with  brown  lashes  and  eyebrows.  A  handsomer  man,  a 
woman,  nor  a  novel  reader  never  looked  upon.  There  is  a  lus- 
cious, Dutch  look  about  that  portrait  Gilb*ert  Stuart  painted  of 
Yan  Ness  which  does  not  fail  to  account  for  his  success  with 
Miss  Burns.  He  left  no  will  and  never  made  one.  The  toast 
after  his  death  was,  "  well  fed,  well  bred,  well  read :  we  never 
shall  look  upon  his  like  again  !" 

William  P.  Yan  Ness,  brother  of  the  Mayor,  was  also  a 
striking-looking  man  of  larger  intellectual  development  than 
General  Yan  Ness,  but  of  less  pleasing  expression ;  he  enjoyed 
a  larger  area  of  career  than  the  Mayor.  The  Yan  Nesses  were 
said  to  be  descended  from  Aerd  Yan  Ness  of  West  Yriesland, 
Lieutenant  Admiral  of  Holland. 

Amongst  the  episodes  of  the  old  Yan  Ness  mansion  is  the 
story  of  Ann  G.  Wightt,  well  known  in  her  day  as  "  sister  Ger- 
trude." 

She  was  a  cousin  of  Mrs.  Marcia  Yan  Ness,  and  of  a  Mary- 
land family.  A  young  and  beautiful  child,  she  was  sent  to 
school  at  Georgetown  Convent,  and  while  her  parents  were 
absent  in  Europe  she  became  enamoured  of  the  ideal  convent 
life  and  took  the  veil.  She  is  said  to  have  risen  to  such  con- 
sideration that  she  was  talked  of  as  Lady  Superioress.  When 
about  thirty  years  of  age  she  slipped  on  the  dress  of  one  of  the 
monks  or  fathers,  and  one  evening,  left  the  Convent  by  stealth 
and  was  driven  to  the  Yan  Ness  mansion,  where  she  claimed 
the  protection  and  hospitality  of  John  Yan  Ness  on  the  score 
of  cousinship.  A  day  or  two  after  she  arrived,  two  priests 
called  at  the  house  and  demanded  to  talk  with  her.     She 


822  THE  LAST   OF   THE   VAN   NESS   MANSION. 

answered  them  from  the  head  of  the  stairs  that  under  no  cir- 
cumstances would  she  return  to  the  Convent.  It  was  never 
known  why  she  had  taken  flight,  but  she  became  the  reverse 
of  a  recluse  and  was  a  gay  and  brilliant  woman  in  society,  but 
she  never  married.  Amongst  her  intimate  acquaintances  at  a 
later  period  was  Isis  Iturbide,  a  daughter  of  the  Emperor  of 
Mexico,  who  left  Miss  Wightt  a  legacy  of  $10,000,  and  the  lat- 
ter had  the  sagacity  and  perseverance  to  go  to  the  city  of  Mex- 
ico and  obtain  the  money  while  the  other  Iturbi^es  got  little  or 
nothing.  She  was  notable  for  her  splendid  black,  flowing  hair, 
superb  teeth,  and  great  conversational  power.  She  died  at  the 
residence  of  Honorable  John  Y.  Mason  in  Richmond,  a  short 
time  prior  to  the  civil  war. 

The  Van  Ness  Mansion  made  its  last  public  appearance  in 
the  Assassination  Conspiracy  when  its  affable  and  inoff"ensive 
proprietor,  Mr.  Green,  was  put  into  a  military  prison  upon  a 
newspaper  rumor  that  the  mansion  was  to  have  been  used  as  a 
place  of  incarceration  for  President  Lincoln  preparatory  to  his 
removal  to  Virginia  by  stealth.  It  is  a  noble  old  property,  and 
when  the  Board  of  Public  Works  or  whatever  is  responsible 
hereabout  arranges  Seventeenth  street  and  fills  up  the  canal,  the 
ride  around  this  mansion  up  the  shaded  river  side  to  Braddock's 
Rock  and  Camp  Hill  will  be  one  of  the  best  in  Washington. 

A  word  on  the  subject  of  the  original  proprietors  of  the  site 
of  Washington.  To  their  titles  all  deeds  for  property  in  the 
Federal  city  date,  and  I  spent  an  hour  looking  them  over  one  day 
recently  in  the  Room  of  the  Commissioners. 

The  Carroll  estate  was  divided  into  "  New  Troy,"  500  acres, 
Duddington  pastures  431  acres,  and  Duddington  Manor  497J 
acres.  St.  Thomas  bay  entered  the  Manor  from  the  Eastern 
branch  and  St.  James's  creek,  behind  it,  separated  Duddington 
pasture  from  Notley  Young's  farm  of  400  acres.  East  of  Dud- 
dington, and  nearer  the  Navy  Yard  was  "  Houp's  addition,"  laid 
out  for  Madame  Ann  Young  by  Jeremiah  Riley  and  his  father, 
Eliphas  Riley  in  1757.  Part  of  the  same  was  resurveyed  for 
Charles  Carroll,  Jr.,  in  1759  and  called  '  Cerve  Abbey  Manor/ 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  323 

The  dwelling  (70x22  feet),  great  smoke  house,  spring  house 
and  brick  stable  (95)  at  Duddingtonwere  erected  after  the  city 
was  laid  out.  A  log  house  and  a  frame  hen  house  in  the  cor- 
ner nearest  the  Capitol  were  on  the  square  previously. 

Robert  Peter's  log  mansion  house  (36x22),  quarters  and 
outbuildings  stood  on  the  square  between  13th  and  14th  streets 
west  of  W  and  boundary. 

Mr.  Young's  mill  (36x24),  stood  between  1st  and  2d  streets 
East  and  M  and  N  streets  in  what  is  now  "  Swampoole."  The 
widow  Digges  had  log  houses  in  Delaware  avenue  near  by. 

John  Davidson's  heirs  occupied  his  frame  mansion  and  log 
wings  (32x20)  (12x12)  between  12th  and  13th  streets  west 
and  K  and  L  north  ;  his  family  graveyard  was  at  the  corner  of 
K  and  13th. 

Mr.  Fenwick's  house,  60  by  31,  stood  riglit  on  the  space 
where  Georgia  Avenue  intersects  S.  Capitol  Street,  at  the 
water  side  ;  the  graveyard  was  just  by. 

Messrs.  Lynch  and  Sands  lived  in  a  "  mansion  house,"  20 
by  17  at  tlie  corner  of  L  Nortli,  and  6th  West,  near  the  old 
Seventh  Street  Market. 

The  widow  Young  had  a  mansion  house  36  by  23,  with  half 
a  dozen  tenements,  right  on  the  Eastern  branch,  between  17th 
and  18th  streets  East,  at  the  burnt  bridge. 

James  M.  Lingan's  frame  mansion  and  office  attached,  66  by 
22  feet,  was  right  in  Ninteenth  street,  nearest  N,  at  M  and  N 
North. 

Samuel  Davidson's  log  dwelling  and  kitchen  (original)  stood 
on  square  183,  at  17th  and  M  streets,  four  squares  north  of 
Lafayette  Square. 

David  Burns's  house  and  graveyard,  occupied  then  by  James 
Burns,  20  by  16 — graveyard  30  by  30 — stood  on  H  street 
North,  between  9  and  10  West,  identical  with  the  subsequent 
Mausoleum. 

The  residence  of  Notley  Young  was  a  staunch  and  roomy 
brick,  which  stood  near  the  Potomac  side,  upon  the  bluffs  near 
the  Washington  wharves,  and  was  taken  away  within  a  com- 
pai-atively  recent  period,  to  accommodate  a  new  street. 


324  VARIOUS    SITES. 

Notley  Young's  mansion  (original  proprietor)  was  in  the 
middle  of  South  G  street  (between  Squares  389  and  390)  and 
between  9th  and  10th  streets  West,  half  way  between  the 
steamboat  landing  and  Long  Bridge.  One  of  his  barns  was  at 
10th  and  D,  and  another  at  7th  and  I.  His  graveyard  was  at 
the  riverside  where  South  H  strikes  the  water.  > 

Abramam  Young's  mansion  house  (22  by  22)  and  grave- 
yard stood  on  North  D,  by  15th  East,  at  the  city  boundary. 

Samuel  Blodget's  mansion,  29  by  12,  stood  in  16th  Street 
West,  between  P  North  and  Massachusetts  Avenue,  half  way 
between  the  White  House  and  the  boundary. 

George  Walker's  mansion — 53  by  32,  graveyard,  and  log 
tenements  stood  between  Maryland  Avenue,  North  E,  6th 
Street  East  and  7tli,  Square  862,  on  the  Bladensburg  route. 

Mrs.  Front's  house — 53  by  24,  and  graveyard  stood  on 
Square  90,  M  and  8th  streets. 

Mr.  N.  Young's  dwelling,  above  referred  to  (42  by  52),  stood 
in  G  street,  between  9th  and  10th,  Square  389-90,  and  it  had 
27  cabins,  sheds,  houses,  barns,  etc.,  attached,  between  7th  and 
lltli,  and  F  Street  and  the  river. 

At  Alexandria,  in  1798,  Mr.  Fairfax's  house  was  on  the  op- 
posite heights  of  Hunting  Creek,  opposite  "  Parry  Hill."  Cam- 
eron's Mills  were  just  above  the  neck  of  the  creek ;  Lee's 
house  was  on  the  first  knoll  back  of  the  town,  just  opposite 
Cameron  Street,  if  extended ;  the  Episcopal  Church  was  at 
Columbus  and  Cameron  Streets ;  the  Quaker  meeting-house  at 
St.  Asaphe  and  Wolf;  the  Presbyterian  and  Methodist,  on  the 
same  square,  between  Royal  and  Fairfax  and  Wolf  and  Duke. 
Catholic  and  Dutch  Lutheran  Cimrches  were  suggested  at 
Church  and  Washington  Streets. 

Widow  Wheeler's  log  buildings,  and  three  distinct  corps  of 
graves,  in  rows,  stood  three  squares  above  the  Navy  Yard 
bridge,  between  Virginia  Avenue  and  14th  East,  and  South  M 
Streets  and  tlie  Eastern  Branch,  right  behind  the  Commission- 
ers' wharf,  where  also  was  the  upper  ferry. 

One  of  the  most  notable  estates  around  Washington  is  that 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  325 

of  the  Calvert  family,  which  existed  in  somewhat  better  than 
its  present  condition,  before  the  District  was  laid  out. 

The  estate  of  Mount  Airy  lies  one  mile  north  of  Bladens- 
burg,  upon  the  Old  Stage  road  to  Baltimore,  and  the  Washing- 
ton Branch  Steam  Railway  passes  through  the  noble  level  park 
where  once,  I  have  heard  "  Porte  Crayon  "  say,  herds  of  deer 
roamed  at  will.  Lodges  of  plastered  brick,  quaint  to  the  eye, 
flank  the  main  gate,  and  as  the  visitor  canters  down  the  drive 
to  the  mansion,  he  sees  upon  a  low  eminence  to  the  left,  within 


MT.   AIRY. 

view  of  both  lodge  and  villa,  the  burial  ground  of  the  family. 
Two  flat  tombs,  vault-fashion,  enclose  the  remains  of  John  and 
of  Rosalie  Eugenia  Calvert,  and  the  memorial  stone  of  Charles  B. 
Calvert  is  an  upright  piece  of  marble, — the  three  substantial 
and  plain,  and  thus  inscribed : 

In  memory  of  Charles  B.  Calvert;  Born  August  23d,  1808,  Died  May  12, 
1864. 

Blessed  are  the  merciful ;  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy. — Matt.  v.  7. 

Here  lies  the  body  of  John  Calvert,  Esq.,  of  Riversdale ;  youngest  son  of 
Benedict  Calvert,  Esq.,  of  Mt.  Airy,  Prince  George  County,  Maryland,  and 
grandson  of  Charles  Calvert,  sixth  Lord.  Baltimore,  who  died  January  28, 
1838,  aged  70. 

Here  rests  the  body  of  Roealie  Eugenia  Calvert,  wife  of  Geo.  Calvert, 
and  daughter  of  Henry  J.  Strie,  Esq.,  of  Antwerp. 

May  she  be  remembered  among  the  children  of  God,  and  her  lot  be  cast 
among  the  Saints. 


826  SOCIAL   SUBJECTS   OF   INTEREST. 

**  We  see  the  hand  we  worship  and  adore, 
And  justify  the  all-disposing  power." 

From  this  mound  of  sepulture  a  pleasant  view  is  afforded  of 
the  picturesque  negro  cabins  scattered  over  the  estate,  of  the 
large  barns  and  improvements  which  were  in  their  prime  about 
1830,  and  of  the  blue  and  gray  wooded  hills  of  Prince  George's, 
which  almost  enclose  the  estate,  as  well  as  that  vista  of  declin- 
ing terraces  toward  the  Anacosta,  at  Bladensburg.  The  man- 
sion is  built  of  brick  and  stone,  rough  plastered,  and  in  color, 
bright  yellow.  It  is  flanked  with  offices  wliich  are  connected 
with  the  centre  by  short  colonnades,  and  the  grounds  are  taste- 
fully ornamented  with  glass  houses  and  fountains.  This 
estate  has  been  the  home  of  one  of  the  natural  branches  of 
the  Calvert  family  for  many  generations — that  of  Benedict 
Calvert,  son  of  Charles,  Fifth  Lord  Baltimore,  whose 
daughter  Nelly  became  the  youthful  bride  of  the  child  of  Mrs. 
George  Washington,  and  Mother  of  George  Washington  Parke 
Custis,  with  whose  estate  of  Arlington  in  Virginia,  the  fine  old 
aristocratic  coaches  of  the  Calverts  exchanged  ceremonial  visits, 
up  to  the  periods  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren. 

Following  the  fashipns  and  opportunities  of  their  time  and 
station,  the  Lords  Baltimore  strewed  natural  offspring,  even 
from  the  beginning.  The  pious  George,  first  of  the  title,  left 
Philip  Calvert,  born  out  of  wedlock ;  Benedict  Leonard, 
Fourth  Baltimore,  married  the  grandchild  of  a  mistress  of 
Charles  II,  and  this  lady  bore  illegitimate  children  whom  the 
husband  petitioned  the  House  of  Lords  "  to  bastardize." 
Charles,  the  Fifth  Baltimore,  left  Benjamin  (called  Benedict) 
Calvert,  who  is,  in  the  above  inscription,  for  some  reason  at- 
tributed to  the  Sixth  Baltimore.  Finally,  Frederick,  the  last 
Baltimore,  died  without  other  issue  than  Henry  Harford  and  his 
sister,  both  natural  offspring.  The  family  of  Benedict  Calvert 
of  Mt.  Airy,  has  always  been  honorably  associated  and  held  in 
high  esteem  in  Maryland. 

The  great  families  of  that  early  day  in  the  vicinity  of  Wash- 
ington were  the  Calverts  of  Mount  Airy,  the  Curtises  of  Vir- 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  327 

ginia  and  Georgetown,  and  the  Carrolls  of  Duddington.  Mrs. 
George  Washington's  son  married  Eleanor  Calvert,  and  the 
eldest  daughter  of  this  marriage  married  Thomas  Law,  the 
second  married  Thomas  Peter  of  Georgetown,  and  the  son  mar- 
ried Mary  Lee  Fitzhugh  and  moved  to  Arlington  House  after 
the  death  of  his  grandmother  Washington.  Here  we  have  a 
family  association  both  mutable  and  memorable. 

Thomas  Law,  brother  of  Lord  Ellenborough,  a  Lord  Chief- 
Justice  of  the  King^s  Bench,  and  son  of  a  Bishop  of  Carlisle, 
made  a  great  fortune  by  the  aid  of  Warren  Hastings  in  India, 
and  his  brother  was  one  of  Hastings'  counsel.  It  was  thought 
better  for  the  interests  of  Hastings  that  Law  should  slip  off  to 
America,  and  as  at  that  time  an  immense  speculation  was  cur- 
rent in  Washington  City  lots,  Law  embarked  and  lost  the 
greater  part  of  his  fortune  in  building  houses  around  the  new 
Capitol.  He  erected  several  of  the  fine  old  edifices  on  New 
Jersey  Avenue  heights,  and  there  he  dwelt  in  widower  solitude 
after  his  divorce  from  his  wife,  who  had  taken  advantage  of  a 
visit  he  made  to  Europe  in  1804  to  assume  male  apparel  and 
consort  with  officers  at  the  marine  barracks.  The  house  where 
Law  dwelt  after  obtaining  the  divorce  was  then  a  boarding 
house  for  Congressmen  kept  by  Mitchel,  a  Frenchman.  It 
was  Law  who  obtained  the  consent  of  Congress  to  open  the 
Tiber  Creek  by  lottery.  These  points  are  derived  from  C.  W. 
Janson's  American  book,  published  in  London,  1807. 

Miss  Josephine  Seaton  tells  us  that  Thomas  Law  was  a 
younger  brother  of  Lord  Ellenboioagh,  L  r  1  Chief-Justice  of 
the  King's  Bench  and  brother  of  the  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells. 
He  served  in  the  civil  list  under  Lord  Cornwallis  in  India  and 
came  to  America  enraptured  with  Washington's  character  and 
Republican  prospects.  He  married  Anne  Custis,  sister  of 
George  Washington  Parke  Custis,  of  Arlington,  and  built  blocks 
in  the  city  with  his  India  accumulations,  and  had  a  country 
house.  Like  Joel  Barlow  he  was  a  deist.  He  had  two  sons, 
John  and  Edmund,  and  possessed  considerable  random  genius. 
Jefferson  wrote  to  him  respectfully  in  1822  from  Monticello. 

Colonel  John  Tayloe,  one  of  the  wealthiest  land-holders  in 


328  THE   FAMOUS   OCTAGON. 

Virginia,  moved  to  Washington  and  built  a  town  house  in  1798. 
He  had  an  income  of  $60,000  a  year,  was  married  to  the 
daughter  of  Governor  Ogle  of  Maryland,  and  was  thirty  years 
of  age  when  his  house  was  finished.  It  was  called  the  Octa- 
gon.* The  following  year  he  established  the  Washington  race, 
course  nearly  on  the  site  of  the  present  Columbia  College. 
His  income  in  1804  was  said  to  have  been  $75,000  a  year,  and 
he  expended  -133,000  annually  in  the  purchase  of  land,  having 
great  tracts  on  both  sides  of  the  Potomac.  He  died  in  the 
Octagon,  March  3,  1828,  in  the  58th  year  of  his  age ;  liis 
widow  lived  until  1 855.  Tayloe  was  undoubtedly  the  wealthiest 
citizen  of  Washington  in  the  first  quarter  of  a  century  of  its 
history.  Probably  no  other  person  has  had  as  much  income 
since  within  the  District  limits,  if  we  except  Mr.  Corcoran  the 
banker.  Tayloe  was  educated  in  England  after  the  revolution. 
A  considerable  portion  of  his  large  property  remains  in  the 
hands  of  his  connections. 

On  the  Maryland  side  of  the  Potomac  within  a  few  hours' 
ride  of  Washington  are  two  great  old  mansions  called  respect- 
ively Notley  Hall  and  Marshall  Hall. 

Notley  Hall  is  referred  to  in  the  novel  of  Rob  of  the  Bowl  in 
these  terms  : 

"  Think  of  my  ride  all  the  way  to  Notley  Hall — and  round 
about  by  the  head  of  the  river  too — for  I  doubt  if  I  have  any 
chance  to  get  a  cart  over  the  ferry  to-night.  The  boat-keeper 
is  not  often  sober  at  this  hour.  Would  you  rather  ride  twenty 
miles  (from  old  St.  Mary's)  to  Notley,  or  twelve  toMattapany  ?" 

George  Notley  was  mentioned  in  the  remodeled  school  laws 
of  1723  as  one  of  the  seven  trustees  of  the  principal  and  better 
sort  of  inhabitants  of  Prince's  Georges  county  named  by  the 
Assembly. 

The  Marshalls  were  a  leading  church  of  England  family  in 
St.  George's  Hundred  as  early  as  1612.  Marshall  Hall  is  now 
(1872)  a  pic-nic  resort  owned  by  a  Washington  City  inn-keeper. 
The  Addison  family  of  Oxon-Hill  came  to  America  between 
1650  and  1660. 

*■  Engravinpr  of  Tayloe's  Octagon  on  page   118. 


SOCIAL   SKEICHES.  329 

More  than  two  hundred  feet  above  the  Potomac  stands 
Arlington  House,  one  of  those  huge  •  adaptations  of  classical 
architecture  to  domestic  uses  which  abounded  in  the  Middle 
States  and  the  South  about  the  period  of  the  Kevolution.  It 
shows  to  admirable  advantage  from  Wasliington,  with  its  front 
of  a  hundred  and  forty  feet  breadth,  mucli  of  which  is  taken  up 
with  a  heavy  Doric  portico,  designed,  as  old  Custis,  its  proprie- 
tor, used  to  say,  in  his  affectation  of  art,  after  the  Temple  of 
Paestum.  But  when  the  grandson  of  George  Washington's 
wife  got  the  great  columns  up,  his  patience,  his  money,  or  his 
art  gave  out,  and  he  hastily  covered  the  Temple  of  Paestum 
with  a  barn  roof.  The  house  is  not  split  up  into  so  many 
small  rooms  as  Mount  Yernon,  and  some  of  its  larger  apart- 
ments are  cool  and  spacious.  It  used  to  be  the  depositary  of 
many  Washingtonian  trophies  and  portraits,  ajid  we  owe  to 
Custis  an  account  of  nearly  all  the  pictures  and  casts  of  Wash- 
ington that  were  taken.  In  the  light  of  the  late  war  Arling- 
ton House  might  have  become  a  sort  of  rebel  Mount  Yernon 
had  Lee  been  victorious,  and  its  position  is  strikingly  like  that 
of  Washington's  homestead.  It  has  the  same  yellow  color  of 
rough  casting,  a  lawn  and  natural  fresh  timber,  and  Custis 
and  his  wife  are  buried  together  privately  upon  their  estate, 
like  George  and  Martha  Washington.  But  by  the  reverse  of 
fortune,  and  by  the  many  thousand  Federal  soldiers  buried 
around  the  mansion,  Arlington  is  the  Mount  Yernon  of  that 
collective  Wasliington  of  the  second  Union — the  volunteer 
soldier  of  the  people.  Here  are  fifty  or  sixty  acres  of  graves, 
a  white  head-board  to  every  one ;  and  the  natural  level  of 
the  grass  rolls  over  all,  so  that  the  dismal  coffin-like  mound 
common  to  church  yards  is  not  manifest.  The  grounds  are 
laid  out  in  an  unaffected  way,  and  on  the  great  carriage-drives 
the  officers  are  buried.  Amongst  the  soldiers'  graves  there 
are  some  rebels,  laid  away  in  honorable  equity,  but  accredited 
to  their  cause  upon  their  head-boards.  The  effect  of  the  ceme_ 
tery  is  to  make  one  think  of  rest,  neatness,  and  coolness.  Over- 
head, the  hickory,  walnut,  elm,  oak,  and  chestnut  trees,  some 


330  THE   ARLINGTON   ESTATE. 

of  them  a  century  old,  make  shadow  without  mourning.     There 
are  no  funereal  willows  or  cypresses. 

The  graves  project  their  files  of  head-boards  to  the  limit  of 
the  timber,  and  they  ramble  into  the  realm  of  sunshine,  mak- 
ing the  semblance  of  a  silent  encampment  of  tents  in  min- 
iature. The  disconnected  remains  of  two  thousand  soldiers 
of  Bull  Kun  are  laid  away  together  under  a  single  granite 
scroll,  which  bears  a  dignified  descriptive  title.  The  cemetery 
proper  does  not  occupy  more  than  a  third  of  Arlington  wood 
and  park,  which  is  probably  composed  of  200  acres,  and  is  a 
fine  instance  of  Virginia  landscape,  covered  with  great  trees, 
containing  springs  and  rills,  and  from  many  parts  of  it  the 
city  of  Washington  and  the  suburb  of  Georgetown  are  seen 
directly  below,  in  all  the  clear  chiseling  of  a  Potomac  atmos- 
pliere.  The  mansion  of  Arlington  is  merely  an  office  for  the 
Warden  of  the  cemetery  now.  The  old  estate,  of  which  it  was 
the  homestead,  embraced  eleven  hundred  acres,  and  was  the 
property  of  Daniel  Parke  Custis,  the  first  husband  of  Mrs. 
George  Washington,  and  one  of  the  richest  men  in  the  colo- 
nies. Washington  left  it  to  his  wife's  grandson  and  his  own 
adopted  son,  George  Washington  Parke  Custis,  who  died  in 
1857,  leaving  this  estate  to  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Colonel  Robert 
E.  Lee,  during  her  life,  and  then  to  Custis  and  Fitzhugh  Lee, 
his  grandsons.  Arlington  could  not  be  confiscated,  therefore, 
as  it  was  not  the  property  of  the  traitor  Lee,  but  by  the  accu- 
mulation of  taxes  upon  it,  the  State  of  Yirginia  ordered  it  to 
be  sold.  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  to  wdiom  we  owe  the  purchase 
and  preservation  of  a  good  many  relics,  such  as  Ford's  theatre, 
resolved  at  any  price  to  buy  Arlington.  He  bid  it  in  without 
opposition  for  twenty-six  thousand  dollars.  Previous  to  this 
time  all  the  AVashington  relics  that  had  not  been  carried  off 
by  Mrs.  Lee,  were  taken  to  the  Patent-Office,  that  temple  of 
sewing  machines  and  martyrs'  relics.  The  old  house  is  naked 
of  everything  but  flower-pots  now. 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES. 


831 


"  BRENTWOOD.* 


"Brentwood,"    the    estate 
(1873)    of   Captain    Carlisle 
Patterson,  IT.  S.  N.,  stands 
in  the  hilly  woods  north  of 
the  Capital.    It  was  the  farm 
of  Robert  Brent,  Esq. ,  a  Mary- 
.  ^  land  farmer,  whose  daughter 
^-  married  Joseph  Pearson,  Con- 
gressman from  North  Caroli- 
na.    Soon   after  the  Capital 
was  pitched  in  the  neighborhood. 

The  house  was  built  in  1816  from  designs  by  Latrobe,  who 
threw  his  habitual  dome  over  it,  but  devised  a  really  elegant 
residence.  The  main  building  is  three  rooms  broad,  including 
a  very  elegant  crosswise  hall  and  the  dome  behind  it  as  rooms, 
which  they  are,  and  of  exquisite  proportions  at  that.  The 
wings  are  five  rooms  deep. 

The  Pearson  Mill  stood  until  the  Civil  War,  on  the  Tiber  near 
Boundary  street,  when  it  was  pulled  down,  but  not  until  a 
painting  of  it  had  been  made  by  Mr.  Cranch,  the  artist.  Many 
years  before  the  water  had  been  diverted,  to  supply  the  Cap- 
ital and  its  fountains. 

Mr.  Pierson  was  thrice  married,  and  to  Miss  Worthington  of 
Georgetown  at  last.  One  of  the  daughters  of  this  marriage  was 
wedded  to  Augustus  Jay,  grandson  of  Chief-Justice  John  Jay. 
There  remained  of  this  estate  in  1873  about  150  acres ;  nine- 
ty-six acres  had  been  detached  and  turned  into  the  Kendall 
Green,  and  Columbian  Institute  properties.  The  present  owner, 
Captain  Patterson,  is  the  brother-in-law  of  Admiral  David 
Porter. 

Daniel  Carroll,  the  first  Commissioner  of  Washington,  was 
born  at  Upper  Marlbro, — an  old  Maryland  court-house  town, 
recently  opened  to  the  outer  world  by  railway, — and  he  was 
sixty  years  of  age  when  he  became  a  Commissioner  to  locate 
the  Capital  City  upon  a  part  of  his  estate.  He  was  a  Catholic, 
and  therefore  for  a  small  part  of  his  life  not  eligible  to  political 


332  TUDOR   PLACE. 

promotion.  But  his  wealth,  prudence,  and  patriotism,  and  tho 
leading  position  of  his  brother,  Bishop  Carroll,  and  of  the 
Carroll  family  at  large,  made  him,  to  the  end  of  his  days,  a 
prominent  man  in  public  counsels.  He  had  been  a  member  of 
Congress,  and  a  member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention,  and 
was  near  the  close  of  his  days  when  he  became  the  Federal 
Commissioner.  Reduced  by  infirmities  he  was  unable  to  work 
with  much  energy  upon  the  Capital  site  and  he  resigned  hia 
office  in  three  or  four  years,  and  died  May,  1796. 

The  Carrolls  of  the  western  shore  of  Maryland  were  a  very 
numerous  family,  and  much  confusion  has  grown  out  of  tlie 
similarity  of  their  names.  At  Bishop  Carroll's  chapel,  eight 
miles  north  of  Washington,  arc  tombs  of  Eleanor  Carroll,  relict 
of  Daniel  Carroll,  Esq.,  who  died  in  1796  at  the  remarkable 
age  of  92,  so  that  she  must  have  been  born  m  1704.  What  a 
remarkable  old  lady  this  would  be  to  tell  us  about  pre-Wash- 
ingtonian  incidents !  In  the  same  grave-yard  lies  Ann  Brent, 
daughter  of  Daniel  Carroll,  and  widow  of  Robert  Brent,  who 
was  born  in  1733,  and  died  in  1804.  In  the  same  grave-yard 
lie  the  Digges,  a  notable  family  in  their  day.  and  patrons  of 
Major  L' Enfant. 

At  Georgetown  College  Cemetery,  a  cross  of  marble  stands 
at  the  head  of  a  slab  which  is  said  to  cover  the  general  remains 
of  those  elder  Car- 
rolls  who  were  re- 
moved from  Dud- 
dington  at  a  com- 
paratively recent 
period.  At  the 
base  of  the  cross 
is  the  inscription, 
set  up  over  the 
son  of  the  Simon  tudor  place. 

Carroll  : 

"  Daniel  Carroll,  of  Duddington,  Obt.  May  9, 1849,  aged  84." 

Tudor  Place,  of  which  we  give  an  engraving,  is  the  finest 
villa  in  Georgetown,  and  was  built  by  Thomas  Peter.  Here 
Robert  E.  Lee  paid  his  last  visit  to  the  District  of  Columbia, 


SOCIAL    SKETCHES.  333 

about  1869.     It  is  now  occupied  by  Thos.  Beverley  Kennon, 
of  the  Peter  family. 

Threekall's  addition  to  Georgetown  celebrates  the  name  of  a 
notable  family,  whose  estate  was  near  the  convent,  and  is  now 
destroyed. 

"  Kalorama,"  used  to  be  a  celebrated  Washington  villa,  the 
seat  of  Joel  Barlow,  Esq.,  poet,  diplomatist,  soldier,  and  suc- 
cessful speculator. 

Colonel  William  Washington  lived  at  Kalorama  prior  to 
Barlow. 

Another  notable  place  in  Georgetown  is  the  Linthicum 
house,  built  by  Colonel  Dorsey,  next  owned  by  Robert  Bever- 
ley and  occupied  for  many  years  by  John  C.  Calhoun,  while  in 
the  height  of  his  national  reputation. 

Thomas  Lin  Lee,  who  was  at  the  time  fifty  years  old,  was 
addressed  by  Washington,  in  July,  1794,  and  asked  to  serve 
with  Richard  Potts,  as  Commissioner,  in  place  of  Governor 
Johnson  and  Dr.  Stewart.  "  The  year  1800,"  said  the  Presi- 
dent, "  is  approaching  with  rapid  strides,  equally  so  ought  the 
public  buildings  to  advance.  The  prospect  is  flattering  ;  .  . 
the  crisis  is,  nevertheless,  delicate."  Washington  then  inti- 
mated that  he  wished  to  avoid  past  negligence  by  naming  Com- 
missioners who  would  reside  on  the  Federal  site  and  consider 
their  salaries  as  paid  to  them  with  that  understanding  to 
defray  their  expenses. 

Mr.  Lee  had  been  Governor  of  Maryland  between  1779  and 
1783,  and  an  efficient  co-operator  with  General  Washington  in 
supporting  the  armies  of  the  country.  He  was  a  delegate  both 
to  the  Continental  Congress  and  the  Constitutional  Convention, 
and  had  just  retired  from  the  Governorship  of  the  State  when 
he  received  the  nomination  of  Federal  Commissioner.  He  died 
in  1810. 

Richard  Potts,  another  Commissioner,  lived  at  Frederick- 
town,  and  had  been  a  patriot  and  Governor  of  Maryland 
between  the  early  terms  of  Governor  Lee,  and  was  a  United 
States  Senator.     He  was  an  educated  gentleman. 


334  SOCIAL  SKETCHES. 

Frederick,  in  Maryland,  was  a  flourishing  place,  with  an 
arsenal,  five  churches,  and  about  seven  hundred  houses,  in  the 
last  year  of  Washington's  administration.  Travelers  in  those 
days  describe  the  portion  of  Maryland  intermediate  between 
Frederick  and  Washington,  as  nearly  reduced  to  the  condition 
in  which  it  remains,  to  a  great  degree.  Yellow  clay  and 
gravel,  tilled  with  the  hoe  instead  of  the  plough,  worn  out  with 
tobacco  culture,  and  often  lying  in  naked  prospects,  with 
scarcely  an  herb  to  cover  it.  The  people,  however,  were  pry- 
ing and  inquisitive,  compared  to  that  phlegmatic  German  popu- 
lation on  the  Monocacy,  whose  fields  were  thrifty  and  green 
with  wheat.  An  English  traveler,  who  visited  the  Great  Falls 
as  early  as  1796,  turned  off  at  Montgomery  Court-house,  and 
crossed  about  three  miles  above  them,  by  a  ferry,  one  mile  and 
a  quarter  wide,  to  the  Virginia' shore. 

Thomas  Johnson,  another  Commissioner,  had  been  a  dele- 
gate from  Maryland  to  the  Constitutional  Congress,  and  Gover- 
nor during  the  early  part  of  the  Revolution.  Between  1791 
and  1793  he  was  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.     He  died  at  the  age  of  eighty-seven,  in  1819. 

Alexander  White,  Commissioner  as  above,  had  been  a  dele- 
gate from  North  Carolina  to  the  Continental  Congress,  and 
a  representative  up  to  1793  ;  he  is  said  to  have  been  an 
ardent  and  eloquent  man,  and  he  died  at  Woodville,  Virginia, 
1804. 

Mr.  Commissioner  Scott  died  in  the  year  1800,  and  his  place 
was  filled  by  W.  Church. 

Analostan  Island,  in  the  Potomac,  opposite  Georgetown,  con- 
taining 70  acres,  was  the  celebrated  residence  of  General  John 
Mason,  where  was  entertained  Louis  Philippe,  by  the  descend- 
ant of  George  Mason,  of  Gunston  Hall.  The  house  was  burned 
down  during  the  civil  war,  and  the  island  is  now  a  pleasure 
resort.  Jas.  M.  Mason,  rebel  Commissioner  to  Europe,  pas- 
sed his  childliood  here.  Government  built  a  causeway, 
connecting  this  island  with  the  Virginia  shore.     The  novel- 


SOCIAL    SKETCHES.  335 

ist   and   poet  Paulding  wrote  as  follows,  in  1825,  on  "  Ana- 
dostan :"  ' 

"  On  either  side,  and  all  around, 

The  weltering  wave  is  seen  to  flow, 
Noiseless,  or,  if  you  hear  a  sound, 
'Tis  but  a  murmur,  soft  and  low. 

The  great  trees,  nodding  to  and  fro 

In  stately  conelaves  not  a  few, 
Whisper  as  secretly  and  slow 

As  bashful  lovers  ever  do. 

Tlie  tinkling  bell,  the  plashing  oar, 

The  buzzing  of  the  insect  throng, 
The  laugh  that  echoes  from  the  shore, 

Tlie  unseen  thrush's  vesper  song — 

And  when  I  count  the  earthly  hours 

That  I  shall  cherish  most  of  all, 
That  walk  in  Anadostan's  bowers 

Will  be  the  first  that  I  recall." 

A  few  sketches  of  the  early  Commissioners  of  the  city  are 
appended : 

In  Georgetown  College  Cemetery  is  this  tombstone  bearing 
reference  to  the  family  which  owned  a  part  of  the  river  front 
where  the  city  was  pitched. 

"  To  the  memory  of  the  Eev.  Notley  Young,  who  departed 
this  life  August  1st,  1820,  aged  54  years." 

Opposite  Oak  Hill  Cemetery  in  Georgetown  is  Avhat  is  called 
the  Colonel  Carter  place,  on  which  the  houses  burned  down 
about  the  close  of  the  war.  Here  lived  the  French  minister 
Sartiges  and  M.  Mercier,  with  whom  Prince  Napoleon  stopped 
on  his  visit  to  this  country.  Governor  Henry  D.  Cooke  bought 
the  grounds  and  ruin  for  $50,000  and  laid  the  foundations  of 
a  large  mansion  on  which  work  has  been  suspended  for  several 
years. 


336 


AMOS  KENDALL — HIS   HONESTY. 


The  following  inscriptions  are  in  Glen- 
wood  Cemetery. 

Our  father  John  Lessford, 

The  Chronicler  of  Washington, 

Died  Feb.  23d,  1862. 

Aged  36. 

Amos  Kendall. 

Born  August  16th,  1789. 

Died  Nov.  12th,  1869. 

Jane  Kyle, 

wife  of  Amos  Kendall, 

Born  October  12th,  1807. 

Died  June  2,5th,  1864. 

On  Postmaster  General  Kendall's  tomb 
are  these  mottoes : 

"  Charity  is  love  in  action." 
'•  Blessed  are  the  dead  who  die  in  the  Lord." 
"  The  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light." 

TOMB  OF  AMOS  KENDALL. 

As  a  public  official,  Mr.  Kendall  was  one  of  the  best  in  our 
service,  and  he  may  truthfully  be  called  the  great  Postmaster 
General.  He  went  into  his  office  poor  and  left  it  very  poor. 
Every  cent  that  he  has  made  was  acquired  subsequent  to  his 
resignation,  and  it  was  gained  almost  entirely  by  his  business 
association  with  Mr.  Morse,  the  inventor.  When  Kendall  took 
the  Post-Office  in  charge  he  turned  out  every  clerk,  and  for  a 
week  had  the  books  of  the  department  overhauled.  Those 
clerks  whose  accounts  were  straight  were  re-appointed,  and  the 
derelict  dismissed.  He  was  so  poor  that  a  tempter  appeared  to 
him  in  the  person  of  a  subordinate  and  clerk,  who  pertly  said : 

"  Mr.  Kendall,  I  am  aware  that  you  have  no  money.  I  have 
an  account  in  the  bank,  and  will  lend  you  some  when  you  are 
in  need  of  it." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Kendall  coldly,  "  I  don't  know  that  I 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  337 

have  need  to  borrow  any  money,  but  when  I  have,  I  cer- 
tainly shall  not  borrow  it  from  a  subordinate." 

This  clerk  wanted  some  favors  in  the  way  of  pickings.  Next 
morning  he  was  turned  out  of  the  Post-Office. 

Morse,  the  inventor,  lacking  business  qualifications  entirel}' , 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  secure  Amos  Kendall  to  popularize 
his  telegraph  apparatus.  Kendall  set  to  work  with  rigid  method, 
and,  proceeding  to  organize  companies,  arranged  that  Morse 
should  have  so  much  stock  in  each  company,  according  to  its 
capital,  and  that  he  (Kendall)  should  have  a  certain  portion  of 
Morse's  revenue.  In  this  way  both  of  them  grew  speedily  to 
riches,  but  Kendall  had  business  thrift  and  vigilance,  and  at 
this  time  he  is  probably  richer  than  Morse — unless  he  be  dead. 
Kendall  has  been  in  two  tilings  consistent  all  his  latter  days — 
he  has  been  a  Jacksonian  Democrat,  and  a  rigid  member  of  the 
Baptist  Church. 

I  met  him  at  the  close  of  the  Impeachment  trial,  and  inter- 
rogated him  as  to  Johnson's  criminality. 

"  I  take  little  sympathy  in  politics  these  days,"  he  said ; 
"  neither  with  Mr.  Johnson  nor  his  opponents.  I  never  admired 
him." 

Last  New  Year's  day  the  old  man  stood  am_ong  his  married 
daughters,  receiving  visitors,  the  handsomest  septuagenarian  in 
Washington.  His  residence,  until  of  late,  has  been  in  a  grove, 
called  Kendall  Green,  on  the  borders  of  the  city,  and  he  is 
rich  in  real  estate  all  round  about  here.  The  Baptist  Church, 
with  the  high  iron  spire,  at  the  corner  of  Eighth  and  H  streets, 
has  cost  him  probably  $150,000.  Kendall  was  a  Northern  man 
who  began  life  a  school  teacher  in  Kentucky,  and  he  never  lost 
sight  of  the  New  England  economical  virtues,  while  he  was 
conservative  in  politics.  I  asked  him  last  New  Year's  day 
what  he  thought,  after  this  long  interval,  of  the  cliaractei  of 
Andrew  Johnson. 

"  He  grows  larger  as  he  recedes,"  said  Kendall ;  "  he  was 
the  greatest  American  I  ever  looked  upon,  and  second  to  only 
him  to  whom  all  greatness  is  subordinate,  the  first  President." 
15 


338 


THE   HOME    OF    JEFFERSON. 


The  later  life  of  Mr.  Kendall  has  been  troubled  by  but  one 
considerable  loss,  that  of  his  son,  who  was  shot  dead  in  a  street 
collision  with  the  son-in-law  of  his  old  friend,  John  C.  Rives. 
Ho  made  no  upbraidal  nor  mutiny,  but  laid  away  vindictive- 
ness  with  the  bones  of  the  lad,  who  was  at  fault. 

Kendall  was  not  a  man  that  the  nation  will  weep  over.  He 
w^as  too  strict,  too  well-balanced,  too  much  guided  by  pure,  cold 
human  judgment  to  wring  from  men  affectionate  regrets  that 
he  never  desired.  Sufficient  unto  liimself,  within  his  own 
resources,  architect  of  the  wealth  he  evolved,  his  life  has  been 
so  complete  and  fortunate  that  there  is  no  urn  upon  his  tomb 
for  tears.  Heaven  makes  some  men  exceptionally  perfect  in 
life,  that,  dying,  it  may  show  how  poor  they  vvere,  lacking 
weaknesses. 

A  few  hours  ride  by  rail  from  Washington  will  take  the  vis- 
itor to  Charlottesville,  the  home  of  Jefferson  of  which  I  shall 
give  a  short  description.. 


Jefferson's  university  and  home. 

Leaving  Washington  nt  7  o'clock  A.  M.,  I  breakfasted  at 
Alexandria,  and  crossed  Bull  Run  befoiv  9.  There  arc  two 
Northern  settlements  on  the  weird  old  stream, — its  deep  pools 
and  frequent  eddies  lying  gloomily  among  the  rocks, — one  set- 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  339 

tlement  completely  new,  and  hewn  out  of  tlie  timber  and  un- 
derbrush lying  beside  the  railroad,  and  its  neat  frame  cottages 
and  warehouses  standing  upon  smart  boulevard  streets,  with  per- 
spectives of  bold  hills  in  the  street  vistas  ;  the  other  village  is 
at  Manassas  Junction,  amongst  Beauregard's  old  forts,  and  it 
contains  five  hundred  traders,  tavern-keepers,  and  mechanics. 

The  view  at  Manassas  is  the  first  of  the  great  series  of  Blue 
Ridge  landscapes,  which  make  what  is  called  the  Piedmont 
terrace  of  Virginia  so  entrancing.  Manassas  is  a  bold,  open 
plateau,  bounded  by  blue  mountains,  which  make  the  land- 
scapes look  wide  and  stately.  Bull  Run  is  the  gulf  to  the 
northward  where  the  plateau  drops  away.  Nothing  now 
remains  of  the  battle  fought  here  but  certain  redoubts, 
breastworks,  and  forts,  overgrown  with  sedge  or  dribbling  off 
to  weed.  The  Rappahannock  and  its  outlying  stations — every 
one  the  si;C  of  a  battle — soon  passed  by.  I  saw  the  pretty 
soldiers'  cemetery  at  Culpepper,  and  then  Cedar  Mountain  arose, 
where  I  had  wandered  bareheaded  on  the  night  of  the  fierce 
battle  there,  feeling  the  first  paralysis  of  the  fear  of  death. 
All  the  crops  of  oats,  wheat,  potatoes,  and  corn  were  thriving, 
and  the  wlieat  liarvcs.t  was  nearly  over.  I  dined  at  Gordons- 
ville,  a  town  of  railway  junction,  wliich  the  rebels  held  during 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  war — a  pretty,  struggling,  whitewashed 
town  at  the  foot  of  hills ;  and  here  leaving  the  Richmond  road 
to  the  left,  I  passed  through  the  Southwest  Mountains,  under 
the  base  of  Monticello,  and  crossing  the  Red  Ravenna  River, 
was  at  Charlottesville. 

Being  here  to  attend  commencement,  I  took  advantage  of 
the  proximity  of  Monticello  to  ride  there.  It  is  only  three  miles 
from  the  town,  and  on  the  side  opposite  to  the  site  of  the 
University.  It  is  a  doomed  mansion,  standing  on  the  crest  of 
a  conical  mountain,  the  promontory  of  a  ridge  of  such,  and 
the  Ravenna  River  washes  the  base  of  the  hill. 

Hiring  a  horse  for  one  dollar  and  a  half,  or  at  the  rate  of  half 
a  dollar  an  hour,  I  rode  briskly  out  the  south  road,  forded 
Moore's  Creek,  and  turned  up  the  base  of  Sneed's  Mountain. 


840  Jefferson's  home. 

Fine  forest  trees  shaded  the  way  ;  the  fields  were  tinted  bhie 
with  the  stalks  of  weeds  ;  the  wheat,  all  cut  and  shocked,  stood 
on  the  shoulders  of  the  hills,  and  slipped  into  the  dips  and 
curls  of  rich  valleys ;  the  streams  were  heard  saying  liquid 
things  to  the  dry  air,  and  rabbits,  tame  as  the  mice  that  play 
round  a  baby's  crib,  cocked  up  their  plump  bodies  in  the  road 
and  looked  sideways  archly  and  squintingly.  All  the  streams 
caught  a  reddish  tinge  from  the  oxides  of  iron  in  the  clay,  and 
yet  they  reflected  the  sky  and  their  banks  like  crystal ;  locust 
trees  grew  amongst  the  stone  walls  that  enclosed  the  fields  ; 
some  large  oaks  stood  in  the  barest  vistas,  and  the  loose  horses 
rested  beneath  them  from  the  sun  ;  I  heard  few  birds  or  grass- 
hoppers singing,  and  my  whole  attention  and  ecstacy  felt  the 
impression  of  the  expanding  sceneries,  which  widened  as  I 
mounted,  showing  the  humped  backs  of  blue  mountains,  and 
loftier  ranges  further  off,  which  were  swung  across  the  sky  like 
a  scarf  of  gauze.  The  forms  of  these  nearer  mountains  were 
like  the  postures  of  Michel  Angelo's  marbles,  unique,  sinewy, 
startling,  elbowed,  and  hipped,  and  bending  and  yawning,  and 
their  strong  outlines  were  filled  in  with  the  bluest,  grayest, 
sweetest  mists  and  herbages,  while  between  the  isolated  cones 
and  spines  the  valleys  rolled  like  the  Illinois  prairies,  and, 
wherever  there  Avas  a  depression,  you  could  guess  a  stream. 
Rising  higher  and  higher,  the  narrow  roadway  became  a  terrace 
on  the  brink  of  a  ravine,  and  at  times  there  were  deep  creases 
and  rocky  shelves  over  which  the  way  had  to  be  carefully 
picked,  but  the  higher  I  climbed  the  purer  and  rarer  grew  the 
air,  the  nobler  the  stature  of  the  oaks  and  ash  trees,  and  the 
deeper  the  sense  of  majesty  in  nature  round  about.  I  pictured 
the  tall,  strong,  buoyant  man  who  had  ridden  over  this  road  so 
often,  looking  away  at  the  plains  and  eminences,  and  feeling  in 
his  spirited  nature  the  inspiration  of  their  rolling  freedom. 
Like  the  backs  of  bisons  thundering  along  in  herd  and  suddenly 
arrested  by  some  alarm,  they  stood  silent,  picturesque,  and 
gigantic  along  the  plain.  Glimpses  of  other  mountains  were 
seen  through  the  foUage,  as  I  rose  into  the  purer  air,  and  at 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  341 

last,  gaining  the  crest  of  the  ridge,  I  turned  along  the  moun- 
tain spine  and  began  to  climb  Monticello.  No  fence  nor  wall 
lined  the  road,  which  wound  round  and  round  through  the 
timber,  till,  suddenly,  in  the  wildest  part  of  the  wood,  I  came 
to  a  tall,  brick  enclosure,  partly  broken  down  and  pierced  in 
the  middle  to  make  place  for  a  panel  of  iron  rods,  through 
which  I  saw  a  rough  granite  obelisk  and  some  granite  slabs. 
This  I  knew  to  be  the  family  cemetery  of  Jefferson. 

It  was  a  part  of  the  natural  woods,  and  tall  locusts,  linden, 
and  hickory  trees  grew  amongst  the  graves,  while  an  abundance 
of  small  herbage,  bushes,  weeds,  and  climbing  vines  grew  upon 
the  walls  and  amongst  the  slabs  and  vaults.  The  enclosure 
was  about  one  hundred  feet  square,  the  wall  was  ten  or  twelve 
feet  high,  and  within  it  were,  perhaps,  thirty  vaults  and  tombs. 
No  words  can  convey  to  you  an  idea  of  the  desolation  of  the 
scene  as  associated  with  such  a  man.  The  first  glimpse  through 
the  bars  filled  me  with  a  sense  of  pity  and  indignation.  The 
bars  contained  no  wicket,  and  a  barred  gate  on  another  side 
was  fastened  with  a  large  padlock,  so  I  climbed  over  the  grille 
and  the  tottering  wall,  and  let  myself  down  amongst  the  graves. 
A  thunder  storm  Avhich  had  been  gradually  moving  and  mut- 
tering overhead  now  began  to  bellow,  and  some  lightning 
attended  it,  but  not  a  drop  of  rain  fell. 

Jefferson's  tomb  is  made  of  granite,  and  is  about  eiglit  feet 
high ;  almost  every  letter  is  gone  from  it,  chiseled  and  chip- 
ped off  by  vandal  students,  and  it  looks  battered  and  nonde- 
script, like  a  Druid  stone.  Under  the  monument  is  a  plain 
slab,  more  perfect,  covering  the  remains  of  his  favorite  daugh- 
ter, Martha,  and  this,  like  almost  every  other  stone  in  the  grave- 
yard, contains  a  religious  or  poetic  inscription.  One  or  two  of 
the  slabs  have  fallen  off  the  brick  vaults,  and  some  are  cracked 
or  overgrown  with  moss.  The  grave-yard  seems  to  have  no 
keeper,  and  to  be  falling  to  decay  unregretted  ;  weeds  grow 
under  the  trees  ;  the  road  to  the  gate  is  blocked  with  bushes  ; 
the  great  President's  tomb  itself  is  simply  frightful.  He  has 
many  living  descendants,  but,  as  the  livery  stable  man  said 
to  me  : 


342  Jefferson's  home. 

"  You  know  how  it  is  down  yur,  now.  It's  every  man  for 
himself,  and  '  Ole  Tom'  being  dead,  has  no  friends." 

Mounting  my  horse  anew,  I  passed  through  the  remainder 
of  the  wood  of  Monticello,  entered  a  cornfield,  and  finally  drew 
near  a  garden  fence  and  some  vineyard  poles ;  before  me 
stretched  a  straight  and  narrow  orchard  lane,  with  some  out- 
buildings at  the  further  end  ;  to  my  left,  on  the  crest  of  the 
mountain  arose  the  dome  of  Monticello.  You  must  understand 
that  Jefferson's  house  is  set  upon  a  lawn,  made  by  shaving 
down  the  cap  of  the  mountain,  and  that  it  stands  probably 
five  hundred  feet  above  the  little  town  of  Charlottesville  and 
the  Kavenna  River.  This  house  was  not  finished  when  the 
Revolutionary  War  began,  but  Jefferson  inhabited  it  while  ho 
was  Governor,  the  Legislature  at  that  time  meeting  at  Char- 
lottesville, and  here  were  entertained  nearly  all  the  officers 
captured  with  Burgoyne  at  Saratoga,  as  well  as  Lafayette,  and 
all  the  great  leaders  of  troops  and  opinions  for  fifty  years. 

Monticello,  like  almost  every  celebrated  Virginia  mansion  of 
the  old  planter  time,  wears  a  look  of  dilapidation,  and,  as  you 
draw  near  it,  you  feel  a  sense  of  shiftlessness,  of  old  black 
imported  bricks,  of  gates  unhinged  and  hats  stuffed  in  windows, 
of  threadbare  stateliness  and  imposing  imposition,  bankruptcy, 
reduction,  failure,  woe,  these  are  the  impressions. 

The  style  of  the  house  is  that  of  a  Corinthian  villa,  with  a 
dome  over  the  middle,  and  with  two  irregular  wings,  one  portico 
opening  into  a  green  lawn,  littered  over  with  carts,  harness, 
rotten  benches,  and  beautiful  shade  trees, — of  the  latter,  par- 
ticularly lindens,  poplars,  and  locusts.  The  portico  on  the 
reverse  side  of  the  house  looks  out  upon  a  sort  of  parterre^ 
which  is  enclosed  on  three  sides  by  the  state  stables  and  by  a 
continuous  underground  passage  which,  after  an  old  notion, 
had  connected  the  whole  series  of  stables,  dry  wells,  and  so 
forth,  with  the  mansion.  The  stable  wings  arc  concluded  at 
the  two  ends  by  two-story  pavillions,  one  of  which  was  Jeffer- 
son's library  in  the  Summer  time,  and  the  other  was  his  office 
in  the  Winter.     The  house  is  large,  roomy,  and  manorial,  but 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  343 

it  is  in  a  sad  state  of  dilapidation.  The  shingles  on  the  roof 
are  so  rotten  that  tlie  rain  drives  in  at  everj  frequent  shower, 
and  all  the  wood  work  of  the  place  is  decayed ;  the  paint  of  a 
former  time  has  left  no  vestiges  ;  therefore  all  the  woodwork 
has  a  whitish  dun-color,  but  the  well- blackened  English  bricks 
are  said  to  be  as  durable  and  as  good  as  eycr. 

A  shambling  boy,  who  had  lost  one  arm  at  the  battle  of  Lit- 
tle Rock,  fighting  with  Sterling  Price,  told  me  to  tie  up  my 
horse,  and  he  charged  me  fifty  cents  to  enter  the  old  mansion. 
Over  the  door,  under  the  portico,  was  a  great  clock,  balanced 
with  cannon  balls,  which  had  not  been  going  for  forty  years. 
The  great  hall  of  the  house  is  partly  surrounded  abovo  by  a  gal- 
lery or  balcony,  where  it  is  the  tradition  that  the  President 
used  to  show  himself  to  crowds  of  students  and  admiring  visi- 
tors. 

From  this  room  I  passed  into  the  dining-room,  with  deep 
butteries,  pantries,  and  so  forth,  where  there  was  no  particle  of 
furniture  and  a  bad  smell  of  funky  wood.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  walked  into  a  great,  naked  drawing-room,  where  there  were 
two  large  mirrors,  made  of  difierent  pieces  of  glass  set  in  the 
wall,  and  as  my  face  skimmed  over  them,  I  had  a  melancholy 
presentiment  of  the  many  historic  visitors  whose  countenances 
had  also  rested  there,  and — perished.  The  room  under  the 
dome  was  an  octagonal  ball-room,  with  a  place  at  one  side 
where  the  ladies  could  descend  into  the  pediment  of  one  of  the 
porticoes,  and  use  it  for  a  dressing-room. 

I  said  to  my  guide  at  this  spot :  "  I  believe  Jefferson  never 
danced  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  expect  that  he  did,"  said  the  guide,  "  for  he  was  a 
rale  infidel,  fetched  up  by  old  Voltaw." 

The  indescribably  humorous  pronunciation  of  "  Yoltaw"  com- 
pelled me  to  laugh. 

Said  I ;  "  Was  Jefferson  really  brought  up  by  Yoltaire  ?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  he  raised  him." 

Now,  this  sort  of  anecdote  is  just  as  true  as  the  mass  of 
thmgs  related  of  Jefferson  by  orthodox  people. 


344  Jefferson's  home. 

Voltaire  died  in  1778,  while  Jefferson  did  not  visit  France 
until  1784  ;  so  that  he  never  saw  Voltaire  at  all.  But  Frank- 
lin was  a  friend  of  Voltaire,  and  Jefferson  succeeded  Franklin 
as  Minister  to  France,  and  he  probably  had  a  higher  admira- 
tion for  Franklin  than  for  any  man  of  his  time. 

I  observed,  all  through  the  low,  uncomfortable  bed-rooms  of 
Monticello,  that  Franklin  stoves  were  ubiquitous, — real,  genuine, 
original  Franklins, — and  the  guide  said  tliat  these  same  stoves 
could  be  found  in  broken  pieces  all  over  the  farm. 

There  was  never  a  bedstead  in  all  Monticello,  alcoves  having 
been  substituted  in  the  walls,  and  slats  were  fixed  to  staples  in 
these  alcoves.  On  one  of  these  uncomfortable  beds  Jefferson's 
wife  died,  and  they  were  obliged  to  lower  her  body  out  of  one 
of  the  semi-circular  windows  which  abounded  there,  because 
there  was  no  stairway  commodious  enough  to  permit  them  to 
take  out  the  coffin. 

I  wandered  through  these  old  bed-rooms,  walking  out  upon 
the  dangerous  roof,  haunted  the  rotten  old  stables,  peeped 
through  the  dry  w^alls  and  the  covered  walks ;  saw  the  front 
of  the  house,  all  chopped  and  chiseled  over  with  names  of 
boys  and  boors.  In  some  of  the  rooms  the  farmer's  wife  was 
drying  apples  and  making  raspberry  jam  ;  in  others  farm-gear, 
harness,  and  old  barrels  were  strewn  about.  In  one  room  a 
dog  had  littered  ;  the  man  of  the  house  had  the  rheumatism  ; 
not  far  off  they  pointed  out  the  house  of  Mr.  Randolph,  Jef- 
ferson's chief  grandson,  and  looking  southward,  we  could  see 
Willis'  Mountain,  said  to  be  150  miles  away.  I  think  in  all 
America  there  is  no  such  landscape  for  size  and  beauty  equal 
to  this  from  Monticello.  It  far  surpasses  the  view  from  the 
terrace  of  St.  Germain.  At  one  time  Jefferson  owned  nearly 
the  whole  country  round  about,  but  toward  the  end  of  his  life 
he  became  in  debt,  and  sold  parcel  after  parcel,  until  now  the 
estate  is  reduced  to  about  250  acres,  which  rents  for  $250  a 
year.  A  field  hand  is  capable  of  possessing  the  home  of  the 
richest  President. 

Monticello  belonged  to  Captain  Levey,  a  Hebrew,  and  a 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  345 

Commander  in  the  United  States  Navy,  who  was  a  rich  man, 
and  who  had  a  romantic  attachment  to  the  great  leader  ;  for 
he  not  only  took  Jefferson's  house  and  dwelt  in  it,  but  he  had  a 
statue  of  that  chieftain  made  and  presented  to  the  United 
States,  and  it  now  stands  in  front  of  the  White  House.  Levey^ 
I  am  told,  married  his  own  niece,  w^hich  was  contrary  to  the 
laws  of  Virginia,  and  he  left  the  State  before  the  war,  w^here- 
upon  the  rebel  Commonwealth  confiscated  his  property.  It 
is  now  in  litigation.  Levey  is  said  to  have  expressed  in  his  will 
the  desire  that  it  should  be  repaired,  and  made  an  institute  for 
the  children  of  United  States  Navy  officers.  The  neighbors 
consider  the  estate  valued  at  about  twelve  thousand  dollars. 
It  is  now  occupied  by  a  farmer  named  Wheeler.  Jefferson's 
nail  factories,  grist-mills,  and  various  other  expensive  enter- 
prises, are  now  extinct  or  in  ruins.  The  neighbors  say  that 
Monticello  will  make  the  finest  vineyard  hill  in  America,  but  at 
present  tumbles  more  and  more  to  ruin  every  year,  and 
seems  to  possess  neither  master  nor  patron. 

As  a  change  from  old  times  to  new,  I  would  relate  a  passage 
of  a  ride  recently  taken  to  the  Great  Falls  of  the  Potomac, 
passing  on  the  way  the  celebrated  Cabin  John  bridge. 

The  name  of  Jefferson  Davis  has  been  obliterated  from  this 
bridge,  as  from  almost  every  piece  of  architecture  and  engin- 
eering in  the  country. 

The  hollow  ruin  of  a  hotel  at  the  Great  Falls  is  kept  by  one 
Jackson,  the  brother  of  that  inn-keeper  who,  at  Alexandria,  shot 
Colonel  Ellsworth  dead  ;  and  the  survivor  is  a  good  specimen  of 
a  tavern-keeper  in  an  old  settled,  pro-slavery  region  ;  a  slouchy, 
shiftless,  greasy-haired  man,  whose  humor  is  chiefly  an  appal- 
ling exhibit  of  his  manifold  offences,  seasoned  up  with  a  wild 
amiability  and  familiarity.  His  black  hair  falls  in  snaky  long 
locks,  behind  his  ears,  and  his  gray  eye  has  the  light  of  des- 
peration in  it.  Behind  his  bar  stand  a  pair  of  double-barreled 
rifles  and  game-bags,  and  one  of  the  guns  he  shows  as  the 
identical  weapon  which  slew  Ellsworth.  Jackson  says  that 
the  gun  was  not  the  property  of  his  brother,  but  borrowed.     I 


S46  BLOCKADE-RUNNING   ON   THE   POTOMAC. 

took  up  the  rifle,  giving  it  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  and  found  it 
to  have  been  purchased  in  the  year  1836,  at  a  hardware  store  in 
Alexandria,  and  used  for  many  years  as  a  favorite  par- 
tridge-piece. 

It  was  on  deposit  at  the  time  ac  the  Marshall  House,  and 
had  been  loaded  w^th  slugs  by  its  fraternal  borrower,  with  the 
intent  of  killing  two  men  with  it — a  man  with  each  barrel. 
The  lirst  barrel  was  aimed  fairly  at  the  heart  of  Ellsworth,  and 
in  an  instant  the  second  would  have  slain  Brownell,  but  the 
Zouave  threw  up  his  musket,  so  that  Jackson's  shot  passed 
over  his  head,  and  at  the  same  time  the  desperate  assassin  was 
both  shot  and  bayoneted. 

''  Where  is  your  brother  buried  ?  "  I  asked  of  the  inn-keeper 
at  Great  Falls. 

"  In  the  family  burying-ground,  sir,  over  in  Fairfax  County, 
Virginia.  The  widow  lives  on  a  nice  little  property  she  owns 
at  Fairfax  Court  House." 

"  I  believe  there  was  afterward  a  military  company  formed 
called  the  "  Jackson  Avengers  V  " 

"  Yes,  sir.  And  they  had  it  reported  that  I  was  sworn  to 
kill  Brownell.  That  ain't  so,  sir.  I  left  him  to  a  just 
Gord.  I  never  bore  him  no  hate.  He  was  afterwards 
in  Washington  City,  and  at  last  he  was  killed  at  the 
second  Bull  Eun.  I  had  one  other  brother  in  the  rebel 
army,  but  1  kept  out  to  make  money.  Ha!  ha!  ha! 
There  is  a  picture  of  the  shooting  of  Ellsworth ;  somebody 
came  along  and  gave  it  to  me,  and  I  stuck  it  up  behind  the 
bar.  Some  people  says  it  will  make  people  dislike  me,  but  I 
think  not.  Everybody  knows  I'm  his  brother,  and  it's  a  sort 
of  eppropriarte." 

The  Aqueduct  authorities  ordered  Jackson  away  in  1872. 

The  Loudon  Valley,  above  Great  Falls,  which  runs  parallel 
with  the  Shenandoah,  was  the  haunt  of  Moseby's  men,  and 
the  great  conduit  of  treasonable  information  and  contraband 
goods,  from  Washington  and  Baltimore  to  Lynchburg  and 
Richmond.     Leesburg  was  the  nearest  den  of  runners  to  the 


SOCIAL   SKETCHES.  347 

Capital  of  the  country — thirty-four  miles — and  it  was,  per- 
haps, the  most  lawless  village  in  Virginia.  The  rebels  several 
times  passed  to  and  fro  between  Virginia  and  Maryland  this 
way,  as  they  had  no  railway  lines  to  advance  upon,  while  we 
generally  moved  by  the  lines  of  rail,  and  paid  little  attention 
to  the  ferry  passengers,  between  Point  of  Rocks  and  Chain 
Bridge,  except  to  patrol  and  picket  them.  Leesburg  was 
illuminated  the  night  of  the  defeat  of  Ball's  Bluff,  and  it  was 
the  scene  of  many  of  the  debauches  of  Moseby's  men.  The 
wild  torrent  region  between  the  mouth  of  Goose  Creek  and 
Great  Falls  was  signally  adapted  to  blockade  running,  and  the 
dangers  of  fording  and  navigating  in  the  roaring  river  of  dark 
nights,  lent  a  terrible  interest  to  the  enterprise  of  the  smug- 
glers and  spies.  These  crossed  most  generally  in  small,  flat- 
bottomed  scows,  hastily  nailed  together  during  the  day,  to 
evade  the  order  forfeiting  every  private  boat  on  the  Upper  Po- 
tomac, and  the  cargo  was  generally  whisky  and  drugs. 

Jackson  told  me  that  he  had  been  fifteen  times  confined  in 
the  Old  Capitol  Prison  for  running  the  blockade,  and,  on  one 
occasion,  he  walked  straight  from  the  jail  to  the  hand-ferry, 
below  tlie  Great  Falls,  and  paddled  across  with  five  barrels  of 
whisky.  He  had  been  threatened  with  execution,  if  he  were 
caught  again,  but  he  sent  a  boy  half  a  mile  down  stream  to 
fire  off  pistols,  and,  being  himself  shot  at  several  times,  finally 
re-crossed  the  river  with  his  cai-go  twice  before  lie  could  man- 
age to  I'un  it  into  Leesburg.  Tliere  it  was  sold  to  officers  and 
guerrillas  for  81,  in  gold,  a  gill. 

Such  opposite  social  passages  as  have  been  given,  bring  to 
view  the  changes  wrouglit  amongst  the  old  Potomac  people  by 
pitching  the  national  Capitol  amongst  them.  There  is  a  cem- 
etery in  Georgetown — the  most  beautiful  suburb  of  Washing- 
ton— which  is  worthy  of  a  visit  from  anybody.  It  stands  on 
the  green  heights,  where  they  decline  in  steep  terraces  to  Rock 
Creek,  and  ravines  making  up  from  the  base,  describe  inex- 
pressibly cool  amphitheatres,  on  whose  successive  shelves  the 
obelisks  of  the   dead  stand  motionless  and  white  among  the 


348  THE    CAPITAL    CITY    AS    APPROACHED. 

foliages.  Here  are  buried  old  citizens,  whose  village  existence 
the  nation  invaded,  and  planted  the  Capital  City  upon  their 
fields,  so  that  they  grew  often  rich  and  married  their  daughters 
to  shrewd  Congressmen,  whose  intelligence  made  the  best  of 
every  foot  of  ground. 

Marriage  is  the  destiny  of  an  accident.  Shipwrecked  so- 
cially upon  this  marshy  island,  many  a  politician  made  the 
best  of  the  site  and  married  Sukey  Brown  or  Betsy  Wilson, 
who  became  the  mother  of  Indian  contractors  and  foreign  min- 
isters, instead  of  bearing  a  herd  of  young  sovereigns  who  could 
fight  a  game  chicken,  burn  an  abolitionist,  or  wallop  a  nigger, 
without  the  aid  of  the  art  of  reading,  or  the  distress  of  knowing 
how  to  write. 

It  has  occurred  to  me  that  in  all  this  running  narrative  I 
have  not  given  the  distant  reader  a  description  of  the  Capital 
town,  as  you  might  have  approached  it,  any  time  within  the 
past  fifteen  years. 

Here  is  the  city,  as  you  come  to  it  by  the  oldest  railway  from 
the  North.  First,  a  series  of  grassy  hills,  with  sandy  creeks 
at  their  passes ;  then  Bladensburg,  an  angular  stretch  of  old, 
gable-chimneyed,  bent-roofed  houses  half  a  mile  from  the  rail ; 
then  a  line  of  red  clay  breastworks,  worming  up  to  the  hill  tops, 
where  stand  dismantled  forts  ;  then  an  octagonal  building  with 
a  cupola  on  it ;  standing  out  in  the  country  next  to  a  farm- 
house and  beside  a  great  green  imitation  bronze  horse  on  a 
pedestal  in  the  lawn ;  the  home  and  foundry  of  Clark  Mills, 
sculptor ;  then  the  uneasy  outlying  landscapes  of  a  city,  cul- 
verts planted  nowhere,  streets  graded  to  no  place,  brick-kilns 
and  pits,  a  cemetery,  frame  shanties  on  goose  pastures  disputed 
by  cows  made  sullen  by  overmilking  ;  boys,  babies,  friendless 
dogs,  and  negro  women  "  toting  "  great  bundles  on  their  heads, 
no  more  fence,  the  smell  of  apparent  garbage  and  ash  heaps, 
signs  of  ground-rents  and  dirt  throwing  invitations ;  and  all 
this  time  you  are  descending  into  basin  land  and  down  the  val- 
ley of  a  bare  creek  ;  at  last  a  dome,  such  majesty  and  whiteness 
as  you  never  saw  elsewhere,  appears  sailing  past  the  clouds : 
the  Capitol ! 


SOCIAL  SKETCHES.  349 

Out  of  the  long,  cramped,  green-painted  saloon-cars  you  de- 
scend, into  a  depot  that  is  first  a  shed,  then  a  dark,  dull,  dirty 
vestibule  ;  for  the  republican  government  is  not  yet  independ- 
ent enough  to  make  corporations,  erect  buildings  here  worthy 
of  the  Capital  City.  The  exterior  of  this  depot  is  also  mean 
and  squatty.  Backed  up  against  the  depot  are  omnibusses  and 
cabs,  whose  drivers,  white  and  negro,  bully  you  with  whip-han- 
dles. Over  this  pirate  body  you  see  close  by  like  a  marble 
majesty,  the  Capitol,  dome  and  wing,  stand  silent,  sentient, 
scintillant,  regardless  of  the  bare  lots,  shanties,  barracks,  ma- 
chineries, marble  slabs,  and  unfinished  dirt  terraces  that  sur- 
round it. 

To  comprehend  this  city  further,  climb  to  the  dome  of  the 
Capitol.  It  is  enveloped  by  a  range  of  fort-capped  hills,  half 
in  Maryland,  half  in  Virginia.  Through  these-  hills  the  Poto^ 
mac  makes  two  broad  clefts,  coming  down  from  the  West  and 
departing  to  the  South.  Down  where  it  departs,  a  point  stands 
out  in  the  water,  the  City  of  Alexandria,  Virginia,  near  where 
it  comes  in,  on  a  hill-top,  connecting  with  Washington,  is 
Georgetown,  Maryland.  Between  Alexandria  and  Washington, 
a  river  makes  up  acutely  from  the  Potomac,  the  East  Branch, 
whose  real  name — the  Anacostia — is  now  nearly  obsolete.  In  the 
angle  between  the  Potomac  and  the  Anacostia  lies  the  Capital 
City,  about  fifteen  miles  from  the  tomb  of  the  patriarch  who 
selected  the  site  and  gave  it  the  name.  The  dome  where  you 
stand  is  nearly  in  the  geographical  centre  of  the  city,  yet  by 
the  force  of  circumstances,  the  actual,  settled  city  lies  away 
from  the  junction  of  the  two  rivers,  between  the  Capitol  and 
Georgetown,  and  in  a  lower,  baser  site.  Out  on  the  extreme 
cape,  between  the  rivers,  lies  the  Arsenal,  connected  with  the 
city  by  a  straggling  line  of  liouses  ;  it  was  the  place  of  the  trial 
and  execution  of  the  assassins  of  President  Lincoln.  Further 
up  the  East  Branch,  where  the  only  bridge  crosses  it,  lies  the 
Navy  Yard,  a  walled  in  and  busy  area  of  twenty-eight  acres ; 
over  this  bridge  Booth  and  Ilarrold  escaped  to  Surrats- 
viUe  and  lower  Maryland;  still  further  up  the  East  Branch 


350 


VIEW   OP   THE   CITY. 


and 
of 


to    both  the 
disconnected 


CONGRESSIONAL  BURYING  GROUND. 


lies  the  Congressional  Burying  Ground, 
Navy  Yard  and  the  cemetery,  hues 
houses  radiate  from  the  Cap- 
itol. Around  the  Navy  Yard 
there  is  a  large  and  elderly 
settlement,  to  which  a  street 
railway  runs,  and  amidst  it 
the  town  tower  of  the  oldest 
church  in  Washington,  where 
worshiped  Jefferson  and  Mad- 
ison. The  front  of  the  Cap- 
itol inclines  this  way,  and 
over  the  high,  thickly  settled 
plateau  looks  out  the  Statue 
of  Liberty  over  your  head. 
Its  back  is  toward  the  real  city ;  behind  it  eighty-nine  thou- 
sand people  live  ;  in  front  of  it  not  more  than  fifteen  thousand. 

Now  turn  yourself  around,  with  your  back  against  the  back 
of  the  statue,  and  look  away  from  the  Navy  Yard : 

Beneath  you  are  the  terraces  of  the  Capitol  and  the  lawn. 
From  the  bottom  of  the  lawn  great  avenues  radiate ;  that  to 
the  left  leads  to  the  Long  Bridge  and  indices  Arlington  Man- 
sion, far  up  the  Virginia  Hills,  a  steam  railroad  passes  along 
it  and  crosses  the  bridge  to  Alexandria.  The  second  avenue 
is  a  canal,  straight  as  a  sunbeam,  and  it  points  to  the  white, 
chalky  stump  of  the  abandoned  Washington  Monument.  The 
third  is  the  famed  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  dense  with  the  costly 
shops  and  hotels,  revealing  at  the  bottom  the  granite  Treasury 
building  ;  the  fourth  to  the  right  is  a  short  avenue,  and  it  leads 
to  the  City  Hall,  the  seat  of  municipal  government.  Half  lost 
in  houses  beyond  this  are  the  great  marble  piles  of  the  Post- 
Office  and  Treasury,  which  lie  in  the  densest  centre  of  the  city. 
Other  avenues  to  the  right  go  out  to  the  open  Northern  country 
and  the  far  forts  which  Early  invested  in  1864.  Away  off,  on 
the  crest  of  one  of  tliese  hills,  you  see  dimly  the  white  tower 
of   the   Soldiers'    Home,   Mr.    Lincoln's    summer    residence. 


SOCIAL    SKETCHES.  351 

Objects  between  this  latter  and  your  eye  are  the  brick  block 
where  General  Grant  resided,  the  dingy  brick  factory  of  Gov- 
ernment Printing,  and  the  Church  of  St.  Aloythus,  with  the 
highest  tower  and  the  merriest  bells  of  Washington. 

Now,  return  your  eye  to  the  Patent-Office,  which  stands  on 
its  own  separate  though  inferior  hill.  A  great  market-house 
lies  on  each  side  of  it,  nearly  equi-distant.  The  market-house  to 
the  left  is  on  the  Avenue.  Between  this  market-house  and  the 
Potomac  are  the  fine  towers  of  the  Smithsonian  Institute. 
Continuing  South  to  the  Potomac,  you  come  to  the  Ferry  to 
Virginia,  and  the  shipping  piers 

Follow  out  the  Avenue  to  the  Treasury,  and  beyond  it  are 
the  President's  House,  the  War  and  Navy  Departments, 
General  Grant's  head-quarters,  and  the  elegant  residences  of 
Lafayette  Square,  where  live  most  of  the  ambassadors  and  rich 
officials.  Beyond  these  a  stream  called  Rock  Creek  falls 
through  a  deep  valley  to  the  Potomac,  and  on  the  other  side  of 
it  is  Georgetown.  Another  creek,  immediately  beneath  the 
Capitol  where  you  stand,  is  called  the  Tiber  ;  it  bends  around 
the  base  of  Capitol  Hill,  and,  by  a  long  detour  nearly  parallel 
with  the  Potomac,  gets  an  outlet  not  very  far  from  the  mouth 
of  Rock  Creek.  Tliis  Tiber  makes,  with  a  canal  leading  from 
it  to  the  East  Branch,  an  island  of  one-fourth  the  city. 

All  the  forts  around  or  overlooking  the  city  are  dismantled, 
the  gims  taken  out  of  them,  the  land  resigned  to  its  owners. 
Needy  negro  squatters,  living  around  the  forts,  have  built 
themselves  shanties  of  the  officers'  quarters,  pulled  out  the 
abattis  for  firewood,  made  cord-wood  or  joists  out  of  the  log 
platforms  for  the  guns,  and  sawed  up  the  great  flag-staffs  into 
quilting  poles  or  bedstead  posts.  Still  the  huge  parapets  of  the 
forts  stand  upright,  and  the  paths  left  by  the  soldiers  creep 
under  the  invisible  gun  muzzles.  Old  boots,  blankets,  and 
canteens  rot  and  rust  around  the  glacis  ;  the  woods,  cut  down 
to  give  the  guns  sweep,  are  overgrown  with  shrubs  and  bushes. 
Nature  is  unrestingly  making  war  upon  War.  The  strolls  out 
to  these   old   forts  are  seedily  picturesque.     Freedmen,  who 


852 


THE   WASHINGTON    MONUMENT. 


exist  by  selling  old  horse-shoes  and  iron  spikes,  live  with  their 
squatter  families  where,  of  old,  the  ai-jny  sutler  kept  the  can- 
teen ;  but  the  grass  is  drawing  its  parallels  nearer  and  nearer 
the  magazines.  Some  old  clothes,  a  good  deal  of  dirt,  and 
forgotten  graves,  make  now  the  local  features  of  the  war. 

Meantime  the  too  ambitious  monument  to  the  pater patrix 
stands  like  a  stunted  giant,  the  superfluous  blocks  at  its  base 
grown  over  with  grass,  and  few  approach  it,  even  in  curiosity. 
Its  foundations  are  said  to  be  defective,  and  no  money  has 
been  voted  toward  building  it  this  long  time.  A  few  boxes,  in 
various  parts  of  the  country,  receive  dimes  and  quarters 
towards  its  completion,  but,  standing  as  it  now  does,  a  hundred 
and  thirty  feet  in  the  air,  it  has  probably  reached  its  highest. 
I  heard  a  humorous  explanation  of  the  failure  of  this  monu- 
ment, from  an  Irishman. 

"  They  broke  the  Pope's  block  of  stone,"  he  said,  "  it  was  an 
onlucky  act.  The  holy  Father  cursed  the  whole  thing,  and 
immediately  the  foundation  settled.'* 

I  have  spent  part  of  a  day  in  the  shaft  and  workshops  of  the 
Washington  Monument,  a  mournful  instance  of  the  short  life 
of  public  impulse,  and  of  the  defects  in  the  macliinery  of  mis- 
cellaneous private  enterprise. 
This  monument  is  already 
raised  to  the  height  of  175 
feet.  It  has  already  cost 
nearly  1250,000,  and  is  rais- 
ed to  more  than  one-third  its 
total  height.  The  found- 
ations are  perfectly  secure, 
and  capable  of  supporting  all 
the  height  yet  to  be  added. 
There  are  stones  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  ready  to 
be  inserted  in  the  shaft  or  subsidiary  temple  ;  but  work  has 
been  suspended  upon  it  for  about  twelve  years. 

The  monument  was  discouraged,  because  the  people  believed 


WASHINGTON   MONUMENT. 


SOCIAL    SKETCHES.  353 

that  the  contributions,  being  dropped  into  Post-office  boxes  all 
over  the  country,  were  stolen,  and  never  applied  to  the  edifice, 
and  also  because  the  artists  and  art  critics  kept  up  a  steady- 
fire  of  deprecation  upon  the  plan  of  the  monument.  This  plan 
was  an  obelisk,  surrounded  with  a  Greek  Temple.  There  is  no 
notion,  at  present,  of  adding  the  temple,  but  the  Monument 
Association  hope  to  raise  enough  money  to  finish  the  obelisk. 
It  is  easy  to  do  this,  and  it  ought  to  be  done  ;  for  the  unfinish- 
ed shaft  in  the  Capital  City  is  a  record  of  popular  impotence, 
worse  than  if  a  monument  to  Washington  had  never  been 
begun.  This  age  and  people  are  no  exception  to  the  human 
passion  for  monumentalization.  If  ten  thousand  churches  and 
schools  would  give  twenty-five  dollars  a-piece,  this  monument 
could  be  finished.  The  interior  of  the  shaft  is  of  twenty-five 
feet  diameter,  between  the  inner  sides  of  the  walls,  and  so  thick 
are  the  walls,  that  the  exterior  diameter  is  fifty-five  feet.  The 
material  is  marble  from  Maryland.  Within  there  is  a  yawning 
chasm  of  shaft,  very  impressive  to  look  up  into,  and  see,  at  the 
farthest  height,  a  scaffold  hung,  from  which  a  rope  droops 
dizzily,  and  on  the  floor  the  dampness  splashes  and  the  dark- 
ness lies  all  around  the  year,  save  when  some  melancholy 
visitor  puts  his  head  within,  and  feels  dejected  over  the  sus- 
pended gratitude  of  the  land  of  Washington.  I  hope  no  more 
great  monuments  will  be  commenced,  but  I  hope  a  feeling  will 
be  revived  to  see  this  one  finished.  The  memorial  stones,  to 
decorate  some  portions  of  the  shaft,  represent  all  companies, 
lands,  and  ages — lava,  from  Vesuvius  ;  aerolites,  shaken  out 
of  crazy  satellites  or  planets  ;  rocks  of  copper  and  of  porphyry ; 
stones  from  Jerusalem  and  Mecca  ;  everything  but  the  Pope's 
stone,  which,  not  the  builders,  but  the  mob  rejected. 

1 1  tlie  Washington  monument  ever  be  reared  600  feet  high, 
according  to  the  original  plan,  it  will  be  of  the  weight  of 
125.800,000  pounds  ;  the  portion  already  completed  exceeds 
80;000,000  pounds. 


CHAPTEE  XX. 


JOBBING   COEVAL  WITH   GOVERNMENT. 

We  can  get  little  comfort  by  consulting  the  early  records 
of  the  country,  to  show  that  there  were  some  bad  things  done 
in  those  days.  There  is  less  apology  for  evil  in  a  great  and 
prospered  nation,  than  in  a  series  of  jarring  colonies,  where  few 
local  leaders  sought  after  the  revolution  to  remedy  their 
desperate  fortunes.  Early  in  the  history  of  the  country  we 
were  without  organization,  authority,  or  means.  Able  men  in 
those  days  had  few  resources,  unless  endowed  with  estates,  or 
surrounded  with  family  influence.  But  it  never  was  true  of 
the  United  States,  that  corruption  got  to  be  organized,  flagrant 
and  backed  by  a  large  part  of  public  opinion,  until  a  few  years 
prior  to  the  civil  war.  The  Confederate  Government  was  as 
corrupt  at  Richmond,  considering  its  opportunities,  as  the 
Federal  Government  at  Washington.  Both  were  swindled  by 
currency  printers,  contractors,  quarter-masters,  and  beset  by 
rapacious  Congressmen,  who  endeavored  to  retard  the  general 
cause  where  they  could  not  take  the  advantage.  What  is 
called  the  scalawag  element  in  the  South,  has  to  some  degree 
been  the  development  of  the  stealing  element  at  Richmond. 
In  the  North  the  big  army  contractors  have  gone  to  railroad 
building,  and  the  naval  harpies  are  trying  to  restore  Ameri- 
can commerce  with  the  old  hulks  which  were  four  or  five  times 
paid  for  when  chartered  by  the  nation. 

It  was  also  true  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  that 


JOBBING   COEVAL   WITH   GOVERNMENT.  355 

contractors,  clothes-furnishers,  and  others,  endeavored  to  spoil 
the  new  government,  but  we  can  nearly  count  up  on  our  fingers 
the  early  scandals  in  the  history  of  our  country.  Let  us  look 
at  some  of  them : 

1789.  The  State  of  Georgia  was  the  first  to  inaugurate  a 
land  swindle.  It  sold  out'  to  three  private  companies  pre- 
emption rights  to  tracts  of  land  ;  these  companies  were  called 
the  South  Carolina  Yazoo,  the  Virginia  Yazoo,  and  the  Ten- 
nessee Yazoo;  the  whole  amount  ot  land. disposed  of  was  fif 
teen  and  a  half  million  acres,  and  the  sum  agreed  to  be  paid 
was  upwards  of  $200,000.  Subsequently  the  same  lands  were 
sold  to  other  companies,  because  the  first  purchasers  insisted 
upon  making  their  payments  in  depreciated  Georgia  paper.  Hence 
arose  the  controversy  on  the  celebrated  Yazoo  claims,  so  called. 

1790.  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  is  not  good  authority  on  a  ques- 
tion of  the  Treasury,  in  the  first  administration,  thus  speaks 
of  what  he  believes  to  be  corruption ,  under  General  Hamilton, 
after  the  Federal  assumption  of  State  debts  : 

'*  The  base  scramble  again.  Couriers  and  relay  horses  by 
land,  and  swift-sailing  pilot-boats  by  sea,  were  plying  in  all  di- 
rections. Active  partners  and  agents  were  associated  and  em- 
jDloyed  in  every  State,  town,  and  country  neighborhood,  and 
this  paper  was  bought  up  at  five  shillings,  and  even  as  low  as 
two  shillings  on  the  pound,  before  the  liolder  knew  that  Con- 
gress had  already  provided  for  its  redemption  at  par.  Immense 
sums  were  thus  filched  from  the  poor  and  ignorant,  and  fortunes 
accumulated  by  those  who  had  themselves  been  poor  enough 
before." 

1790.  Mr.  Jefferson  is  authority  for  the  statement  that 
Robert  Morris,  and  other  advocates  of  the  national  assumption 
of  the  State  debts,  made  a  lobby  amongst  the  Federal  Con- 
gressmen, to  concede  for  this  point  the  latitude  for  the  Capi- 
tol in  1790.  Two  Virginia  members  changed  their  votes  on 
the  financial  subject ;  therefore  the  seat  of  government  was  given 
to  the  South.  If  this  was  the  case,  both  Morris  and  Hamilton 
were  well  punished  for  the  intrigue.     Mr.  Hamilton  closed  his 


356  ORGANIZATON   OP   NATIONAL  BANK. 

public  career  before  the  middle  of  his  life,  and  Mr.  Morris  is 
commemorated  in  the  local  history  of  the  seat  of  government 
as  the  victim  of  the  most  tremendous  speculative  failure  ever 
recorded  in  that  city.  His  houses,  put  up  on  the  spot  since 
called  for  his  partner,  Greenleaf  s  Point,  tumbled  to  ruins  be- 
fore the  public  buildings  were  complete,  and  he  himself  spent  a 
venerable  portion  of  his  romantic  history  in  the  debtor's  jail  at 
Philadelphia.  The  funding  bill  was  then  adopted  as  an  act  of 
barter,  and  twelve  millions  of  dollars  were  authorized  to  be 
borrowed  to  pay  the  foreign  debt,  and  twenty-one  millions,  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  to  pay  off  tlie  State  debts.  The 
tariff  was  immediately  pushed  up  to  meet  tliese  obligations, 
and  here  began  the  manipulation  of  duties  in  the  interest  of 
domestic  manufacturers. 

1791.  The  same  year  that  the  Capital  was  conceded  to  the 
banks  of  the  Potomac,  Mr.  Hamilton's  proposition  for  a  Na- 
tional Bank  was  brought  forward.  It  passed  the  Senate  in 
Philadelphia,  without  division.  In  the  house  it  was  attacked 
by  James  Madison  and  others,  but  it  finally  passed  by  a  vote 
of  39  to  20.  President  Washington  required  the  written 
opinions  ot  the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  as  to  its  constitution- 
ality, and  Hamilton  and  Knox  endorsed  it  with  vigor,  while 
Jefferson  and  Randolph  took  the  opposite  side.  Its  charter 
was  limited  to  twenty  years,  and  its  capital  was  to  consist  of 
$10,000,000,  of  which  the  United  States  subscribed  -^2,000,000. 
The  bank  was  to  be  established  in  Philadelphia,  and  was  to  be 
managed  by  twenty-five  directors.  The  bank  stock  was  the 
favorite  speculation  of  tlie  day,  and  within  a  few  liours  after 
opening  the  books  the  whole  amount  was  subscribed,  witli  a 
surplus.  Branches  were  established  in  the  chief  commercial 
towns  of  the  republic.  This  bank  and  its  successors,  as  we 
shall  see  further  on,  was  assailed  as  one  of  the  corrupt  influ- 
ences of  the  early  period  of  the  republic. 

1793.  The  first  charge  of  general  corruption  was  made  in 
Congress  by  John  F.  Mercer,  of  Maryland  ;  lie  intimated  that 
the  first  assumption  of  State  debts  had  been  dishonestly  engiu- 


JOBBING   COEVAL   WITH   GOVERNMENT.  357 

eered,  and  that  members  of  the  House  had  not  been  wholly 
guiltless.  To  this  Theodore  Sedgwick  replied,  saying  that  the 
ears  of  the  House  had  already  been  more  than  once  assailed  by 
insinuations  of  the  base  conduct  of  individual  members  in 
speculating  in  their  own  measures.  "  If,"  said  Sedgwick, "  there 
be  so  base  and  infamous  a  character  within  these  walls,  if 
there  is  one  member  of  this  House  who  has  been  guilty  of 
plundering  his  constituents  in  the  manner  represented,  let  his 
name  be  mentioned,  let  the  man  be  pointed  out." 

Another  member  admitted  that  speculation  had  been  carried 
to  a  very  great  extent  during  the  pendency  of  the  funding 
system,  but  that  could  not  be  avoided.  The  matter 
was  then  dropped,  but  Secretary  Hamilton  was  attacked 
by  Mr.  Giles,  of  Virginia,  and  charged  with  failing  to  account 
for  upwards  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  the  public  money.  He 
was  called  upon  to  explain  this  as  well  as  his  mismanagement 
and  intrigue  in  the  negotiation  of  loans.  Hamilton  replied 
that  the  alleged  defalcations  were  made  up  by  reckoning  bonds 
as  money,  and  omitting  deposits,  etc.  Hamilton  liad,  how- 
ever, borrowed  too  much  money  through  the  forwardness  of 
the  American  bankers  in  Holland.  Mr.  Giles  and  his  associ- 
ates introduced  nine  resolutions  of  censure,  charging  Hamilton 
with  exceeding  his  powers,  with  dereliction  of  duty,  with  mis- 
appropriating loans,  deviating  from  his  instructions,  and  vio- 
lating the  law.  A  debate  followed  in  committee  of  the  whole, 
and  although  Madison  voted  to  censure  Hamilton  on  all 
counts,  the  resolution  of  censure  failed. 

1795.  Th(^  first  charge  of  personal  bribery  was  made  in 
1795,  and  was  brought  up  on  the  question  of  a  breach  of  priv- 
ilege. The  charge  was  very  similar  to  that  made  against 
Mr.  Oakes  Ames,  nearly  eighty  years  later.  Two  persons 
named  Randall  and  Whitney,  from  Maryland  and  Vermont, 
respectively,  had  formed  a  scheme  for  obtaining  from  Congress, 
for  the  sum  of  $500,000,  the  right  to  purchase  of  the  Indians 
twenty  millions  of  acres,  in  the  peninsula  of  Michigan.  The 
proposed  purchase  was  divided  into  forty  shares,  some  of  which 
were  offered   to  members  of  Congress,  who  were  guaranteed 


358  "CREDIT  mobilier"  in  1796. 

that  the  shares  would  be  taken  off  their  hands  if  they  should 
lose  confidence  in  the  speculation.  Randall  boasted  that  he 
had  secured  thirty  members.  Mr.  Murray,  of  Maryland,  ex- 
plained the  attempt  at  bribery  to  the  House,  and  Randall  was 
ordered  to  be  arrested  and  put  on  trial  at  the  bar.  His  defence 
was  that  he  had  been  misunderstood,  and  that  his  conduct  was 
merely  foolish  and  imprudent,  and  not  corrupt.  He  was 
declared  guilty  ot  a  high  contempt,  in  attempting  to  influence 
members  as  to  their  legislative  functions,  and  only  17  votes' 
were  cast  against  the  resolution,  amongst  them  Mr.  Madison's; 
lie  maintained  that  the  members  had  no  privilege  against  such 
attempts  except  in  their  own  integrity.  Randall  was  sentenced 
to  be  reprimanded  by  the  Speaker,  and  was  put  in  custody. 

1796.  In  1796  a  transaction  in  Congress  of  a  disgraceful 
nature  occurred,  growing  out  of  the  Georgia  or  Yazoo  land 
speculation,  which  would  look,  in  our  times,  quite  like  a  piece 
of  corruption.  Mr.  Baldwin,  of  Connecticut,  of  the  lower 
House,  had  received  a  memorial,  to  be  presented  to  Congress, 
asking  it  to  do  nothing  recognizing  the  validity  of  the  Yazoo 
sale  until  an  investigation  could  be  had.  Amongst  the  Sen- 
ators who  had  personal  interest  in  this  Georgia  speculation 
were  Frederick  Frelinghuysen,  the  grand-uncle  of  the  present 
Senator  from  New  Jersey,  and  James  Gunn,  Senator  from 
Georgia.  Gunn,  who  was  represented  to  have  been  a  fire- 
eater,  demanded  that  Baldwin  show  him  the  memorial,  before 
its  presentation,  and  give  the  names  of  the  signers  up  to  his 
vengeance.  When  Baldwin  refused,  Gunn  sent  him  a  chal- 
lenge, through  the  precious  Frelinghuysen  aforesaid.  Baldwin 
laid  the  challenge  before  the  House,  and  the  matter  was  re- 
ferred to  a  committee,  which  reported  that  both  Gunn  and 
Frelinghuysen  had  been  guilty  of  a  breach  of  privilege.  The 
land-speculating  Senators  made  apologies  to  the  House,  and 
the  matter  was  allowed  to  languish. 

1797.  The  first  case  of  the  expulsion  of  a  Senator  was  that 
of  William  Blount,  of  Tennessee,  a  very  popular  man  in  that 
new  State.     He   was  exposed  by  President  Adams  in  1797, 


JOBBING    COEA'AL   WITH    GOVERNMENT.  359 

who  sent  to  Congress  some  papers  showing  the  condition  of 
,JiJie  country  concerning  Spanish  intrigues  in  the  soutli-west, 
and  amongst  these  papers  was  the  cop}"  of  a  letter  from  Blount 
to  a  Cherokee  Indian  agent,  written  while  the  former  was 
governor  of  the  American  territory  south  of  the  Ohio.  The  agent 
sent  the  letter  to  the  President,  who  asked  the  British  Minister 
what  it  meant.  It  then  appeared  that  Blount  had  played  the 
traitor  to  the  British,  in  order  to  right  himself  in  a  desperate 
land  speculation.  He  had  designed  selling  his  lands  to  an 
English  Company,  and  was  afraid  that  the  non-commercial 
French  nation  would  come  into  possession  of  them,  by  a  re- 
transfer,  before  he  could  complete  the  sale.  To  anticipate 
this,  Blount  had  proposed  lo  raise  a  force  of  barbaric  back- 
woodsmen and  Indians,  to  co-operate  with  a  British  naval 
force,  and  put  the  English  into  possession  on  the  Gulf.  This 
scheme  had  avarice  for  its  motive  and  cool  treason  for  its  in- 
strument. The  House  of  Bepresentatives  voted  to  impeach 
Blount,  and  the  Senate  put  him  under  bonds  amounting  to 
$50,000.  The  House  also  asked  that  he  be  "  sequestered  " 
from  his  seat  in  the  interim,  which  the  Senate  interpreted 
to  mean  expulsion,  and  forthwith  set  Governor  Blount  outside 
the  door,  with  much  less  delicacy  than  the  Senate  lately 
showed  Messrs.  Caldwell,  Pomeroy,  and  Harlan.  Blount's 
sureties,'  one  of  whom  was  his  brother,  surrendered  him  into 
custody,  but  the  case  was  postponed  until  the  next  session,  and 
after  the  fashion  of  Mr.  Colfax  at  South  Bend,  a  great  re- 
ception was  prepared  for  Blount  at  Knoxville  ;  he  was  elected 
to  the  State  Senate,  and  chosen  president  thereof.  Blount's 
brother,  in  the  House,  meantime  sent  a  blackguard  letter  and 
challenge  to  Mr.  Thatcher,  of  Massachusetts.  Strife  ran  so 
high  at  this  period  that  gentlemen  of  different  politics  would 
not  speak  to  each  other  on  the  street.  Senator  Blount  died 
unexpectedly,  before  his  constituents  had  an  opportunity  to 
disgrace  themselves  by  giving  him  enlarged  honors. 

The  first  great  scandal  against  a  public  official  was  made 
public  while  the  Capital  was  pitched  in  Philadelphia,  in  1797. 


860  INTRIGUES   OF   ALEX.    HAMILTON. 

Its  object  was  no  less  a  personage  than  Alexander  Hamilton. 
One  Callender  had  published  a  book  containing  a  quantity  o^- 
correspondence  and  documents  which  seemed  to  show  that' 
Hamilton  and  one  Reynolds  had  been  buying  up  old  claims 
against  the  United  States,  and  that  the  latter  had  received 
advances  of  money  from  the  former  to  make  these  purchases. 
Reynolds,  and  a  man  named  Clingman,  had  some  time  before 
been  prosecuted  for  perjury,  and  for  seeking  to  obtahi  fraud- 
ulent payment  from  the  Treasury  of  an  alleged  debt  due  them 
from  the  Government.  By  Hamilton's  influence  the  Controller 
of  the  Treasury  stopped  the  prosecution.  This  Reynolds  was 
the  son  of  a  Revolutionary  officer,  and  some  letters  which  he 
and  his  fascinating  wife  possessed  seemed  to  indicate  that  a 
dark  affair  was  going  on.  Three  members  of  Congress  who  had 
explored  the  matter,  went  frankly  to  General  Hamilton  and 
laid  the  proofs  before  him,  and  required  an  explanation.  This 
was  given  but  it  was  hardly  less  astounding  than  if  Hamilton 
had  been  detected  in  corruption.  He  confessed  to  having  paid 
one  thousand  dollars  hush  money  to  Reynolds  not  on  account 
of  any  peculation,  but  to  avoid  exposure  in  a  very  shameless 
intrigue  between  Hamilton  and  the  wife  of  Reynolds.  Hamil- 
ton resolved  to  take  a  desperate  step  and  save  his  official  honor, 
at  the  expense  of  his  private  reputation  and  happiness.  He 
published  certified  copies  of  the  correspondence.  We  take  a 
few  paragraphs  of  his  tolerably  bulky  pamphlet  from  an  auto- 
graph copy  owned  by  William  Duane,  and  inscribed  with  his 
name,  March  28,  1799.  The  title  is  "  Observations  on  Certain 
Documents  Contained  in  Nbs.  V.  and  VL  of  '  The  History  of 
the  United  States  for  the  year  1797,'  in  which  the  charge  of 
speculation  against  Alexander  Hamilton^  late  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury^  is  fully  refuted.  Written  hy  Himself,  Philadel- 
phia^ printed  for  John  Fenno,  hy  John  Bioren.     1797." 

Hamilton  shows  in  this  pamphlet  all  his  graces  of  literary 
composition,  and  strikes  from  the  shoulder  at  the  outset : 

*'  The  charge  against  me,"  he  says,  "  is  a  connection  with 
one  James  Reynolds  for  purposes  of  improper  pecuniary  spec- 


JOBBING   COEVAL   WITH   GOVERNMENT.  361 

ulation.  My  real  crime  is  an  amorous  connection  with  his 
wife,  for  a  considerable  time  with  his  privity  and  connivance, 
if  not  originally  brought  on  by  a  combination  between  the  hus- 
band and  wife,  with  the  design  to  extort  money  from  me." 

The  next  salient  point  is  this,  well- worded  : 

"  This  confession  is  not  made  without  a  blush,  I  cannot  be 
the  apologist  of  any  vice  because  the  ardor  of  passion  may  have 
made  it  mine.  I  can  never  cease  to  condemn  myself  for  the 
pang  which  it  may  inflict  in  a  bosom  eminently  entitled  to  all 
my  gratitude,  fidelity,  and  love.  But  that  bosom  will  approve 
that,  even  at  so  great  an  expense,  I  should  effectually  wipe 
away  a  more  serious  stain  from  a  name  which  it  cherishes 
with  no  less  elevation  than  tenderness." 

These  must,  indeed,  have  been  hard  passages  to  commit  to 
print,  and  it  argues  nobly  for  woman  that,  havingbeen  assured 
from  the  lips  of  her  husband  of  his  offences  against  her,  she 
could  forgive  him  for  his  honor's  sake,  and,  when  he  came  home 
wounded  to  die,  receive  him  in  her  arms  as  if  he  were  stainless. 
Men  never  do  these  acts  of  iorgiveness. 

The  gist  of  Hamilton's  confession  is  in  these  paragraphs : 

"  Some  time  in  the  summer  of  the  year  1791  a  woman  called 
at  my  house,  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  and  asked  to  speak 
with  me  in  private.  I  attended  her  into  a  room  apart  from  the 
family.  With  a  seeming  air  of  affliction,  she  informed  me 
that  she  was  the  daughter  of  a  Mr.  Lewis,  sister  to  a  Mr.  G. 
Livingston,  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  wife  of  a  Mr.  Rey- 
nolds, whose  father  was  in  the  Commissary  Department  during 
the  war  with  Great  Britain ;  that  her  husband,  who,  for  a  long 
time,  had  treated  her  very  cruelly,  had  lately  left  her  to  live 
with  another  woman,  and  in  so  destitute  a  condition  that,  though 
desirous  of  returning  to  her  friends,  she  had  not  the  means  ; 
that  knowing  I  was  a  citizen  of  New  York,  she  had  taken  the 
liberty  to  apply  to  my  humanity  for  assistance. 

"  I  replied  that  her  situation  was  a  very  interesting  one ; 
that  I  was  disposed  to  afford  her  assistance  to  convey  her  to 
her  home,  but  this  at  the  moment  nof>  being  convenient  to  me 
16 


862  ALEX,  Hamilton's  f^^mous  intrigue. 

(which  was  the  fact),  I  must  request  the  place  of  her  residence, 
to  which  I  should  bring  or  send  a  small  supply  of  money.  She 
told  me  the  street  and  the  number  of  the  house  where  she 
lodged.  In  the  evening  I  put  a  bank  bill  in  my  pocket  and 
went  to  the  house.  I  inquired  for  Mrs.  Reynolds  and  was 
shown  up  stairs,  at  the  head  of  which  she  met  me  and  con- 
ducted me  into  a  bedroom.  1  took  the  bill  out  of  my  pocket 
and  gave  it  to  her.  Some  conversation  ensued,  from  which  it 
Avas  quickly  apparent  that  other  than  pecuniary  consolation 
Avould  be  acceptable. 

"  After  this  I  had  frequent  meetings  with  her,  most  of  them 
at  my  own  house,  Mrs.  Hamilton,  with  her  children,  being 
absent  on  a  visit  to  her  father. 

"  In  the  course  of  a  short  time  she  mentioned  to  me  that  her 
husband  had  solicited  a  reconciliation,  and  affected  to  consult 
me  about  it.  I  advised  to  it,  and  was  soon  after  informed  that 
it  had  taken  place." 

The  next  thing  was  that  the  husband  wrote  to  Hamilton  that 
he  had  discovered  the  intrigue,  and  that  his  heart  was  crushed ; 
but  he  Avrote  shockingly  bad  English.  He  reproached  Hamil- 
ton with  having  taken  advantage  of  his  wife's  necessities,  and 
Mrs.  Reynolds  wrote  that  he  had  meant  to  assassinate  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury.  Hamilton  found  himself  considerably 
demoralized.     He  says : 

"  In  the  workings  of  human  inconsistency,  it  was  very  pos- 
sible that  the  same  man  might  be  corrupt  enough  to  compound 
for  his  wife's  chastity,  and  yet  have  sensibility  enough  to  be 
restless  in  the  situation,  and  to  hate  the  cause  of  it." 

Of  course,  after  Hamilton  let  the  real  facts  out  right  can- 
didly, his  enemies  discredited  him. 

"  It  is  showed,"  he  says,  "  that  the  dread  of  the  disclosure 
of  an  amorous  connection  was  not  a  sufficient  cause  for  my 
humility,  and  that  I  had  nothing  to  lose  as  to  my  reputation 
for  chastity,  concerning  which  the  world  had  fixed  a  previous 
opinion." 

He  goes  on  to  show  that,  having  first  black-mailed  him  for 


JOBBING   COEVAL  WITH   GOVERNMENT.  363 

nearly  ten  thousand  dollars,  the  panel-thieves  then  accused 
him  of  taking  money  from  the  Treasury,  and  entering  into 
speculation  with  Reynolds  and  others.  This  pamphlet  is  signed 
Alexander  Hamilton,  Philadelphia,  July,  1797,  and  in  the 
appendix  to  it  are  all  the  amorous  epistles  to  and  fro,  which 
must  have  made  "  live"  reading  when  they  first  saw  the  light. 

1798.  The  House  of  Representatives,  during  this  session 
refused  to  pass  a  resolution  previously  adopted  in  the  Senate  to 
authorize  Thomas  Pinckney  to  receive  certain  presents  which 
in  accordance  with  custom  had  heen  tendered  him  by  the  Courts 
of  Madrid  and  London  at  the  close  of  his  missions  thither,  and 
which  he  had  refused  to  accept  because  of  the  Constitutional 
provision  relating  to  presents  from  foreign  powers.  The  reso- 
lution was  rejected  on  grounds  of  public  policy  as  was  after- 
wards declared  by  unanimous  vote  of  the  House.* 

We  will  now  make  a  step  out  of  the  past,  and  come  to  a 
memorable  claim  of  the  present  day — that  of  Mrs.  Gaines : 

Mrs.  Gaines  is  the  great  female  character  in  New  Orleans. 
She  is  a  small,  plump,  bright-eyed  woman,  and  she  has  been 
the  heroine  of  the  very  heroic  law  suit  which  she  has  person- 
ally conducted,  raising  money  for  the  purpose  to  the  amount 
of  half  a  million,  recovering  nearly  a  million,  and  with  all  the 
probabilities  in  her  favor  of  getting  a  million  more.  But,  if 
she  were  to  get  what  she  would  receive  under  other  conditions 
than  those  of  democratic  public  opinion,  she  would  possess  half 
the  city  of  New  Orleans  in  its  most  valuable  part,  and  be  a 
wealthier  woman  than  Miss  Burdett-Coutts,  whom  Wellington 
endeavored  to  marry  out  of  covetousness  to  her  fortune. 

The  home  of  this  lady  is  in  New  York  City,  bj^t  she  spends 
much  of  her  time  in  New  Orleans,  where  she  has  strong  friends 
and  strong  enemies,  almost  equal  in  number.  Her  suit  has 
involved  many  of  her  intimate  friends,  from  whom  she  has 
borrowed  money  to  pay  lawyers'  fees  and  court  fees.  Her 
second  husband.  General  Gaines,  believed  implicitly  in  the 
merits   of    her     case,    and     gave     her     |200,000    to    fight 


*  Additional  matter  illustrating  this  Chapter  may  be  found  in  Chap.  VII. 


864  MRS.  GAINES  AND  HER  CAREER. 

it  out.  She  has  been  twice  married,  and  to  excellent 
men  both  times  ;  and  I  was  told  that  the  brother  of  her  first 
husband  had  helped  her  with  nearly  the  whole  of  his  funds. 
There  is  a  dash,  piquance,  and  nimbleness  about  this  woman 
which  distinguishes  her  as  one  of  the  queens  of  her  sex.  She 
is  said  to  be  about  60  years  of  age,  but  would  pass  for  40 ;  and, 
wliile  her  education  is  defective,  she  is  a  natural  authoress  and. 
lawyer,  and  can  write  a  stinging  brief  where  sauce  and  justice 
are  mixed  together. 

She  is  just  the  sort  of  woman  to  be  identified  with  New 
Orleans — Provincialism  and  Cosmopolitanism  mingling  in  her 
as  amongst  many  of  these  old  hahitans.  Her  mother  had  married 
a  French  bigamist,  and,  discovering  the  fact  after  she  reached 
New  Orleans,  presumed  to  marry  again  the  great  Daniel  Clarke, 
one  of  the  wealthiest  men  of  the  South.  He  was  one  of  the 
earliest  property-holders  in  New  Orleans,  and  represented  that 
territory  in  Jefferson's  administration.  Clarke  was  smitten 
with  the  beauty  of  the  French  lady,  and  contracted  a  secret 
marriage  with  her — made  secret  in  order  to  anticipate  a  di- 
vorce from  his  French  predecessor.  But,  while  he  was  absent 
in  Washington  City,  his  relatives  and  connections,  who  had 
expected  to  get  his  money,  told  him  that  his  wife  was  unfaith- 
ful, and  hired  her  lawyer  to  tell  her  that  her  marriage  with 
Clarke  was  not  legal.  Having  a  natural  affection  for  man,  the 
French  lady  proposed  to  take  a  third  husband.  This  offended 
Clarke,  and  it  seemed  to  confirm  the  lies  which  had  been  said 
against  his  lady  ;  and  meantime  his  daugliter  was  born — the 
present  Mrs.  Gaines — for  wliom  he  maintained  affection,  so 
that,  while  h^  let  the  wife  slide,  he  gave  a  very  considerable 
sum  of  money  to  a  man  in  Wilmington,  Del.,  to  be  used, 
and  applied  to  educate  his  daughter,  and  at  her  maturity  to 
present  her  with  the  principal.  Thus  the  banks  of  the  Brandy- 
wine,  where  Thomas  LaFayette,  Harry  McComb,  and  your  humble 
correspondent  passed  their  youth,  became  the  playground  of  the 
future  Mrs.  Gaines.  As  they  had  no  penitentiary  in  the  State, 
and  never  whipped  white  people  at  the  post,  the  custodian  of 


JOBBING   COEVAL   WITH   GOVERNMENT.  365 

the  baby  saw  no  business  reason  why  he  should  not  squander 
her  money.  He  did  squander  it,  and  history  has  made  no 
mention  of  the  innumeral)le  fried  chickens,  roast  capons,  and 
deviled  crabs  which  this  unfaithful  guardian  devoured  out  of  the 
inheritance  of  the  babe  in  the  woods.  A  Mr.  Croasdale,  who 
is  the  best  journalist  in  Delaware,  some  time  ago  collected 
the  story  of  Mrs.  Gaines's  childhood  in  Wilmington,  and  it  was 
published,  over  another  name,  in  the  Galaxy  Magazine. 

When  the  guardian  had  squandered  all  the  money,  and  both 
his  liver  and  conscience  were  disordered,  some  faint  recollec- 
tion of  her  childhood  inspired  a  dream  in  the  little  ward. 

She  dreamed  that  her  father  was  another  person  than  the 
man  she  called  father  ;  that  he  was  rich  and  lived  in  a  distant 
State,  amongst  negroes,  molasses,  and  such  other  things  as 
children  like.  She  came  down  to  breakfast  the  next  morning, 
where  the  unfaithful  guardian  was  thinking,  in  a  morose  w^ay, 
how  fortunate  it  was  for  him  that  the  State  had  no  peniten- 
tiary, and  how  unfortunate  that  there  were  no  other  little  girls 
to  be  let  out  with  endowments.  Unhappy  Delawarean.  For 
him  no  longer  the  fried  oyster  gamboled,  or  the  chicken  frica- 
seed !  While  he  was  thinking  over  this  thing  the  little  girl 
told  her  dream.  He  immediately  fainted,  and.  they  had  to  bor- 
row some  old  Delaware  rye,  next  door,  to  bring  him  to  con- 
sciousness. 

As  he  came  to,  he  said, "  Myra  [he  pronounced  it  Myrie,  as 
did  the  future  gallant  husband  of  the  little  girl],  who  has  been 
putting  that  nonsense  into  your  head?"  He  answered  his  own 
question  by  confessing,  like  an  honest  criminal  in  one  of  the 
fairy  books.  • 

The  little  girl  was  at  once  put  in  possession  of  a  law  suit. 
She  became  a  heroine,  married  two  husbands,  and  has  living 
grandchildren.  Both  her  husbands  were  devoted  men,  who  be- 
lieved in  her  claim  ;  she  does  the  same,  lighting  it  out. 

I  have  a  theory  that  Nature's  chief  use  for  us  in  this  life  is 
employment ;  and  that,  like  the  flies  which  convert  into  healthy 
motion  the  mortification  and  decay  in  the  atmosphere,  we  are 


S66  PUBLIC  SERVICE  VS.  LOBBY. 

all  right  enough  when  something  is  given  us  to  do.  But  Na- 
ture makes  a  very  unhappy  fly  of  us  when  she  leaves  us  a  vast 
law  suit,  and  at  the  same  time  impresses  us  with  the  fact  that 
we  are  after  our  rights.  Who  would  know  much  about  Daniel 
Clarke,  or  the  man  in  Delaware,  if  it  were  not  for  Mrs. 
Gaines  ? 

To  show  how  the  public  service  and  the  lobby  come  into  col- 
lision, it  may  be  well  after  reciting  such  matters  as  the  above, 
to  relate  a  conversation  which  I  had  in  1873  with  one  of  the 
most  gallant  and  distinguished  men  in  the  army,  whose  name 
I  shall  not  give,  because  he  might  be  injured  by  the  political 
harpies  of  that  service. 

"  What  is  our  relative  position  amongst  the  navies  of  the 
earth  ?"  said  I. 

"  We  stand  not  above  the  sixth  in  rank. 

"  Great  Britain  could  whip  all  the  navies  of  the  earth  to-day, 
one  after  the  other.  Her  salvation  lies  in  keeping  up  her  com- 
mercial supremacy.  I  have  seen  a  single  vessel  in  her  navy, 
in  the  China  Seas,  which  could  take  in  detail,  the  whole  Ameri- 
can fleet,  and  beat  every  ship  successively.  The  iron-clad  to 
which  I  allude  cost  about  $1,500,000,  whereas  we  have  just 
voted  $3,000,000  to  build  ten  ships.  Next  to  England  comes 
France  in  the  perfectness  of  her  navy.  Russia  and  Spain  have 
enormously  improved  their  efficiency  upon  the  seas.  North 
Germany,  since  she  has  acquired  seaports,  has  become  very 
ambitious,  and  not  only  are  her  vessels-of-war  remarkable,  but 
her  naval  officers  are  of  a  remarkably  shrewd  and  vigilant  de- 
scription. Even  Turkey  has  a  better  navy  yard  than  the  Uni- 
ted States,  strange  as  it  may  appear." 

''  Do  you  think  that  we  are  defenseless  in  our  great  cities  by 
reason  of  the  prostration  of  our  navy  ?" 

"  Well,  New  York  City  might  be  defended,  because  of  its 
remarkable  natural  defenses.  A  ship  or  two  sunk  in  the  chan- 
nel, at  the  Narrows,  or  in  the  Lower  Bay,  would  prevent  an 
entire  fleet  from  getting  up  to  the  city  ;  but  an  iron-clad  navy 
could  go  right  into  Boston  harbor  or  into  Portsmouth  or  San 


JOBBING   C0E7AL   WITH   GOVERNMENT.  367 

Francisco.  A  few  months  ago,  we  barely  missed  getting  into 
a  war  with  Spain,  and  the  State  Department  had  really  got  us 
right  in,  when  suddenly  it  was  suggested  that  we  examine  our 
naval  resources  for  the  moment.  Word  was  sent  that  three 
or  four  ships  might  be  ready  in  twelve  months,  and  two  or 
tliree  more  in  eighteen  months.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
we  backed  right  out  of  the  war  matter ;  and  the  Govern- 
ment, to-day  if  it  knows  anything,  knows  that  even  Spain 
could  drive  right  into  us,  because  now-a-days  men  do  not  count, 
but  mechanism  in  ships  does  all  the  business.  Anticipating 
trouble  w^ith  us  on  the  Cuban  account,  Admiral  Paolo,  now 
Spanish  Minister,  visited  the  United  States,  and  took  an  inven- 
tory of  the  armored  navy.  He  had  all  the  points  ;  and,  by 
George  !  we  would  have  been  humiliated  in  the  estimation  of 
the  earth.  You  see,  about  1864  or  '5,  we  were  the  first  naval 
power  in  the  world,  having  gotten  up  the  earliest  iron-clads. 
But  that  navy  was  created  for  an  emergency,  constructed  of 
green  timber,  and  a  late  investigation  shows  that  every  shot 
fired  into  those  old  rotten  iron-clads  would  have  crumbled  the 
whole  framework. 

The  English  and  other  foreigners  built  upon  our  suggestions, 
and  they  have  made  a  series  of  ships  which  can  steam  13  knots 
an  hour.  Prior  to  the  war,  our  old  wooden  vessels  were  also 
the  best  afloat.  The  Minnesota,  and  such  other  great  ships  in 
the  American  navy,  made  good  speed,  and  gave  our  sailors 
confidence  ;  but,  as  we  stand,  to-day,  we  must  keep  mum,  or 
be  terribly  humiliated." 

''  What  is  the  best  opinion  in  the  navy — I  mean  amongst 
the  large  and  high-minded  officers — on  the  proper  method  of 
building  a  ship-of-war,  whether  in  a  navy-yard  or  in  private 
yards  ?" 

"  There  is  but  one  way,"  responded  my  informant,"  of  con- 
structing a  legitimate  vessel-of-war,  and  that  is  in  the  National 
navy-yards.  Private  shipbuilders  work  only  to  complete  a  job, 
get  their  money,  and  show  the  ship,  which  will  be  good  enough 
for  a  short  period.  But  the  greatest  thing  to  be  looked  to  in  a 
ship-of-war  is  the  timber ;  which  must  be  thoroughly  seasoned ; 


o68  OUR   SHIPBUILDING. 

for  green  timber  warps,  rots,  and  is  nnable  to  hold  its  outer 
armor  in  a  very  little  time.  The  English  build  of  that  mag- 
nificent teak  ;  and  I  have  seen,  in  the  Japanese  Seas,  one  of 
Nelson's  old  ships,  which  had  come  out  in  eighty  days  from 
Great  Britain,  as  sound  and  buoyant  as  he  found  it  at  Trafalgar. 
We  built  for  an  emergency,  in  private  navy-yards,  of  green 
oak,  which  has  no  longevity.  The  corrupt  shipbuilding  in- 
terests of  the  country  press  forward  whenever  we  want  new 
ships,  and,  under  the  tariff  system,  rob  the  Government,  and, 
under  the  modern  job  system,  carry  off  the  prize  from  the 
navy-yards,  where  we  should  have  work  of  the  best  class  slowly 
and  surely  made.  The  tariff  interests,  in  the  estimation  of 
the  honest  officers  of  the  navy,  will  some  day  be  our  scorn  as 
a  people,  and  get  us  such  a  flogging  that  we  will  cut  the  throats 
of  these  jobbers  in  the  public  necessities.  The  great  iron-clad 
ships  of  Russia,  Prussia,  and  Spain  have  been  built  by  the  En- 
glish, under  free-trade,  and  the  work  superintended  by  Com- 
missioners from  the  respective  nations  which  wanted  the  ves- 
sels. We  cannot  build  a  ship-of-war  for  our  lawful  needs  in 
any  foreign  ship-yards,  without  an  act  of  Congress,  and  that 
act  never  will  be  granted  under  the  horrible  system  of  the 
modern  tariff.  I  have  heal'd  naval  men  say  tl>at,  if  the  United 
States  got  into  a  war,  and  was  flogged  out  of  its  life,  so  that 
the  whole  bluster  would  be  taken  out  of  her,  and  we  should 
have  to  begin,  like  France,  from  the  bottom,  and  work  out  an 
lionest  salvation,  we  would  be  better  off.  Something  calami- 
tous is  necessary  to  stop  the  unpatriotic  excesses  of  our  busi- 
ness people." 

I  asked  the  gentleman  who  spoke  thus  intelligently  what  the 
leading  men  of  the  navy  thought  of  Secretary  Robeson  and 
Admiral  Porter.  ; 

"  For  Robeson,"  said  he,  "  there  is  such  contempt  that  I  do 
not  care  to  relate  the  character  of  it.  Instead  of  demanding, 
like  a  man,  that  Congress  give  the  country  a  navy  sufficient  to 
protect  us,  he  begs  for  everything,  as  if  he  were  apologizing 
for  making  the  demand. 


JOBBING    COEVAL   WITH    GOVERNMENT.  369 

"  Admiral  Porter  reduced  himself  in  the  estimation  of  all 
men  ot  courage  when  he  wrote  those  sycophantic  letters  to  the 
President.  But  he  is  equal  to  his  position.  He  always  was  a 
shrewd,  prying,  suggestive  fellow,  and  no  portion  of  the  navy 
has  come  under  his  supervision  but  he  has  improved  it.  There 
is  no  fear  of  him.  Robeson  is  a  mere  shyster,  and  the  civil 
head  of  the  navy  is  the  disgrace  and  contempt  of  every  genuine 
officer  in  it.  We  have  no  navy  whatever.  Every  one  of  those 
monitors  and  iron-clads  built  during  the  war  is  rotted,  and  an 
appropriation  of  $3,000,000  will  do  nothing  more  than  build 
some  fair  iron-clad  coasters  for  defense." 

Some  of  the  scandals  so-called  of  modern  Washington  par- 
take of  the  marvelous  and  get  little  consideration  from  people 
who  demand  testimony  as  well  as  theory.  Let  me  give  an  in- 
stance : 

You  have  probably  met,  amongst  your  acquaintances,  this 
kind  of  a  man  y  An  agreeable,  decorous,  thrifty  well-to-do  gen- 
tleman, who  will  talk  with  you  intelligently  about  the  growing 
evils  of  the  country  and  of  the  general  corruption  of  politics, 
but  will,  at  the  same  time,  inflexibly  pursue  his  private  pur- 
poses against  the  Government,  under  the  belief  that,  in  the  de- 
struction imminent  over  everybody,  the  best  way  to  anticipate 
it  is  to  make  one's  stake  and  share  so  big  that  it  can  bear  one 
up  above  the  common  calamity.  The  country  is  full  of  people 
who  deprecate  corruption,  but  do  not  arrest  their  personal 
scheme,  which  is  a  part  of  it. 

The  gentleman  in  this  case  referred  to  was  taken  with  a 
communicative  mood.  He  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  could 
tell  me  nothing  of  consequence  which  I  would  not  print, 
but  it  is  queer  that  very  many  careful  men  have  some- 
where concealed  about  them  a  hidden  desire  to  give  points 
against  their  class  to  newspaper  men.  Said  this  gentle- 
man : 

"  I  am  one  of  the  oldest  engravers  in  this  country.  There 
is  an  investigation  one  day  to  be  made  into  the  currency  of 
the  country,  which  will  startle  you,  and  your  newspapers  and 


370  isOML   ox^    THE    CLEVER   WAYS. 

all  their  readers.     There  is  a  810  bill.     Take  it, — look  at  it ! 
Do  you  see  anything  notable  about  it  ?'* 

I  looked  the  bill  all  over,  and  then  the  man  all  over,  and 
saw  nothing  to  excite  a  remark  in  either.  "  There  is  nothing 
particular  about  that  bill,"  he  said,  "  except  that  it  is  counter- 
feit. There  are  eighteen  distinct  counterfeits  on  the  $10  bill, 
and,  as  an  engraver,  I  know  that  they  represent  eighteen  dif- 
ferent counterfeiting  gangs.  I  got  this  bill  from  a  street-car 
conductor  in  New  York.  I  got  into  his  car,  and,  as  he  came 
along,  I  said,  '  My  friend,  I  am  sorry  to  ask  you  for  so  much 
change,  but  really  I  have  nothing  less  than  $20.'  ^  0  !'  said 
he,  *  I'll  oblige  you,'  and,  m  a  smiling  way,  he  gave  me  this 
bill  and  a  quantity  of  50-cent  fractional  currency.  I  put  the 
whole  away  in  my  pocket,  and,  being  an  engraver,  I  got  to 
looking  at  the  number  37  on  the  lantern  window  of  the  car. 
Thought  I  to  myself,  '  That's  a  remarkably  handsome  7  for  a 
common  painter  to  make.'  You  know  that  an  engraver  notices 
such  things.  Well,  that  evening  I  went  into  the  Astor  House, 
and,  going  up  to  the  fine,  old,  white-haired  man  who  sells 
cigars  there,  and  is  known  to  everybody  in  New  York,  I  ten- 
dered him  one  of  the  50-cent  papers.  Old  Jimmy  looked  at  it 
and  said  to  me,  '  I  am  sorry,  Mr.  Robinson,  but  that  stamp  is 
counterfeit.  It's  a  very  well-executed  one,  but  I  have  nothing 
better  to  do  in  my  leisure  time  than  to  look  over  such  things.' 
At  this  Jimmy  handed  me  the  stamp,  and  I  looked  at  it,  and 
then  at  the  others,  and,  sure  enough,  they  were  all  counterfeit. 
I  quietly  stepped  outside  the  Astor  House,  and  looked  for  No. 
37,  amongst  the  cars.  I  found  that  the  conductors  ran  eight 
hours  off  and  on,  and  that  my  man  would  not  come  on  till  next 
morning.  There  I  found,  at  the  appointed  time,  my  conduc- 
tor, and  stepped  up  to  him,  and  said  in  a  low  tone,  '  Young 
man,  you  changed  a  bill  for  me  yesterday,  and  gave  me  a 
quantity  of  counterfeit  money.  Now  I  want  you  to  take  it 
back  without  any  noise.'  He  affected  to  grow  indignant,  but  I 
said,  '  Stop  !  stop  !  Do  you  see  that  policeman  ?  If  you  don't 
veturn  me  in  good  money  the  amount  which  you  changed  for 


JOBBING    COEVAL    WITH    GOVERNMENT.  371 

me,  I  will  have  you  under  arrest  in  two  minutes  !*  Well,  it 
was  interesting  to  see  the  promptness  with  which  that '  shover 
of  the  queer '  gave  me  all  of  my  money,  and  forgot  to  ask  for 
his  own. 

"  Mr.  Gath,  you  newspaper  men  know  nothing  whatever 
about  the  duplication  of  United  States  Bonds,  and  about  the 
quantity  of  counterfeit  scrip  afloat.  If  you,  as  a  newspaper- 
man, were  to  go  to  Gen.  Spinner  and  to  the  heads  of  tlie 
Treasury,  and  ask  how  much  counterfeit  currency  was  in  cir- 
culation, they  would  probably  tell  you  10  per  cent.  ;  but 
I  tell  you,  as  an  engraver,  tliat  they  have  admitted  to  me  that 
there  is  25  per  cent.,  or  one  quarter  of  the  whole  amount  of  the 
stamps  current  in  this  country,  which  are  fraudulent.  Do  you 
know,  sir,  that  the  postal  currency  is  renewed  six  times  every 
year  ?  That  is  the  case,  and  see  the  possibilities  for  its  in- 
creased duplicatio]!  and  counterfeiting.  We  could  better  afford 
to  pay  50  per  cent,  premium,  and  use  gold,  than  have  to  deal 
as  w^e  do  w^ith  a  lot  of  paper  which  is  beyond  the  control,  to  a 
great  extent,  of  tlie  Government  officials.  The  extravagantly 
high  prices,  and  the  corruption  in  our  politics  and  life,  hinge 
upon  the  currency.  Tlie  duplication  of  the  United  States 
bonds  will  some  day  be  found  such  an  alarming  matter  that  it 
will  bring  the  whole  country  to  its  feet.  Tliat  crime  began  in 
the  Treasury  so  far  back  as  Chase's  time.  John  Covode  and 
others  in  Congress  made  strenuous  efforts  to  expose  it,  but 
they  were  gagged  by  the  gavel  and  a  party  majority.  An 
official,  who  at  that  time  was  connected  wilh  the  printing,  liad, 
in  some  w^ay,  got  a  grip  upon  the  Secretary,  and  could  not  be 
budged  from  his  place  by  any  power  in  the  country.  His  ac- 
counts were  short 'one  year  $63,000,  and  he  could  not  tell 
where  the  money  had  gone.  They  kept  after  him,  however, 
and,  on  one  occasion,  he  appeared  before  the  examiners  with 
his  arms  full  of  bonds,  and  throwing  them  down,  said,  *  There 
are  your  $63,000  !*  Now,  there  was  a  press  used  for  printing 
at  that  time,  and  it  ran  repeatedly  in  the  night.  The  official 
himself  was  seen  to  emerge  after  dark,  on  two  occasions,  with 


372 


MAGNITUDE   OF  LOBBY  PLUNDER. 


a  great  tin  box  in  his  hand,  which  he  put  into  his  buggy  and 
carried  away.  Now,  how  much  duplication  of  bonds  do  you 
suppose  it  required  to  make  $63,000  w^orth  of  coupons  so  as  to 
equalize  that  account  ?" 

"  Several  hundred  thousand,  T  suppose."  ^ 

^  "  No,  sir  ;  it  took  between  $18,000,000  and  $19,000,000 
of  bonds  ;  and  about  that  time  happened  the  first  duplica- 
tion.' " 

I  looked  suddenly  into  the  old  gentleman's  eyes,  and  was  in 
great  doubt  whether  I  was  speaking  to  an  intelligent  lunatic  or 
a  great  reformer. 

If  one-tenth  of  the  propositions  annually  considered  in  the 
committees  of  Congress  was  to  be  passed,  the  burden  of  tax- 
ation would  be  felt  immediately  at  every  fireside  of  the  coun- 
try, and  it  is  much  to  be  feared  that  the  people  will  never  be 
sufficiently  earnest  until  the  iron  enters  into  the  flesh,  and  job-^ 
bery  makes  them  howl. 

In  order  to  give  an  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  plunder  in- 
volved in  the  schemes  of  the  lobby,  which  have  been  defeated 
in  the  Congress  of  1873,  Senator  Chandler  has  employed 
some  of  his  leisure  moments  to  make  out  the  following  list  of 
attempted  steals  : 

Soldiers'  Bounty  Bill,        .         .         .  $400,000,000 

Agricultural  Lands  bill,         .         .  90,000,000 

Cotton  Tax  refunding,       .         .         .  72,000,000 

Compound  interest  to  States,         .  32,000,000 

Australian  subsidy,   ....  5,000,000 

Oriental  subsidy,  .         .         .         .  13,000,000 

Ship-yard  subsidy,     ....  6,000,000 

Other  subsidies,    ....  5,000,000 

The  two  per  cent,  job,        .         .        .  1,500,000 


Total,     ....         $624,500,000 

The  Soldiers'  Bounty  Bill  and  the  Agricultural  Lands  bill 
were  passed  by  the  House,  but  squelched  by  the  Senate.     The 


JOBBING   COEVAL   WITH   GOVERNMENT. 


373 


Treasury  has  had  a  narrow  escape  of  several  of  these  plunder- 
ing schemes.  Taking  into  account  the  stupendous  jobs  that 
have  been  carried  through,  with  the  aid  of  an  unscrupulous 
lobby,  plain  folk  may  well  stand  aghast  at  the  costliness  of 
Congressional  legislation. 

Those  members  of  Congress  who  are  always  looking  out  for 
a  "  spec."  have  come  to  despise  the  constituency.  They  see 
that  the  people  soon  forget  a  dishonored  public  man,  and  hence 
the  audacious  villainy  known  as  back  pay  passed  the  Congress 
of  1873,  its  champions  not  scrupling  to  register  themselves  in 
black  and  white.  In  order  to  involve  the  whole  government, 
judicially  and  administratively,  in  this  villainy,  the  general 
pay  of  all  was  increased  and  made  retroactive. 

The  following  table  shows  the  new  salaries  provided  by  the 
bill.  The  increased  salaries  of  the  Speakers  of  the  House  and 
of  all  other  officials  took  effect  on  the  4th  of  March : 


The  President, 

Yice-President,    .         .         .         .         . 

Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court, 

Justices  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court, 

Cabinet  officers, 

Assistant  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury,  State  and  In 

terior  Departments,  .... 
Supervising  Architect  of  tlie  Treasury, 
Examiner  of  Claims  in  State  Department, 
Solicitor  of  the  Treasury,  .... 
Commissioner  of  Agriculture, 
Commissioner  of  Customs, 
Auditor  of  the  Treasury, 
Commissioner  of  the  Land-Office, 
Assistant  Postmaster-General, 
Superintendent  Money  Order  System, 
Superintendent  Foreign  Mails, 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  . 
Senators,  Representatives,  and  Delegates, 


$50,000 
10,000 
10,500 
10,000 
10,000 

6,000 
5,000 
4,000 
4,000 
4,000 
4,000 
4,000 
4,000 
4,000 
4,000 
4,000 
10,000 
7,500 


374  REASONS  FOR  THE  BACK-PAY  GRAB. 

The  salaries  of  all  the  clerks,  doorkeepers,  messengers,  and 
other  employees  of  the  House  were  increased  from  15  to  25  per 
cent. 

All  sorts  of  ingenious  excuses  had  been  manufactured,  and 
were  ready  at  hand,  to  defend  hack  pay  ;  amongst  other  pleas 
was  that  against  the  old  mileage  system. 

Under  the  system  of  mileage  the  grossest  inequality  in  the 
compensation  of  members  of  Congress  has  always  prevailed. 
Just  before  the  war  the  father  of  the  present  Senator  Bayard, 
of  Delaware,  who  received  about  $200  mileage,  sat  by  "  Duke  " 
Gwinn,  of  California,  who  got  f  19,000.  To  make  the  matter 
more  uneqal  and  unjust  the  fact  was  that,  although  receiving 
this  immense  amount  on  account  of  travel,  Mr.  Gwinn  actually 
did  not  go  to  Callifornia  for  years.  After  the  war  when 
Reverdy  Johnson  was  Senator  from  Maryland,  he  received 
$128  mileage  for  a  Congress,  while  Messrs.  Nye  and  Stewart, 
of  Nevada,  received  about  $10,000  apiece.  A  few  years  ago  so 
much  complaint  was  made  about  this  unjust  discrimination 
between  members,  that  a  modification  of  the  mileage  rates 
was  established,  but  it  has  still  worked  very  unequally. 

It  appears  that  for  the  Congress  just  expired  the  mileage 
paid  to  Senators  from  the  States  named  was  as  follows  :  Cali- 
fornia, $4,029.60  ;  Oregon,  $6,492.80  ;  Nevada,  $3,513.60  ; 
Texas,  $3,000  ;  Louisiana,  $2,531  ;  Arkansas,  $2,400  ;  Min- 
nesota, $2,475.25  ;  Kansas,  $2,352.10  ;  Nebraska,  $2,147.20; 
Mississippi,  $2,160. 

The  idea  of  making  an  Omnibus  bill  to  include  with  the  long 
talked-of  increase  for  the  President,  the  Supreme  Court  Judges, 
and  the  Heads  of  Departments,  the  never  before  talked-of  in- 
crease for  members  of  Congress,  apparently  originated  with 
Butler,  of  Massachusetts,  the  Guy  Fawkes  of  Congress.  He 
brought  the  bill  back  from  the  Judiciary  Committee,  on  the 
7th  of  February,  1873,  with  a  long  report, — historical,  argu- 
mentative, and  didactic, — in  which  he  labored  hard  to  prove 
that  there  were  strong  reasons  of  justice,  morals,  and  public 
economy  for  raising  the  salary  to  $8,000  per  annum.     In  the 


JOBBING   COEVAL   WITH   GOVERNMENT.  375 

same  report  lie  advocated  the  increase  of  the  President's  salary 
to  $50,000,  and  proposed  to  raise  the  pay  of  the  Judges  and 
the  heads  of  Departments  to  $8,000.  His  bill  to  accomplish 
all  this  was  recommitted  without  action.  Some  time  before, 
Sargent  had  tried  to  put  an  amendment  on  the  Executive  and 
Legislative  Appropriation  bill,  raising  the  President's  salary  to 
$50,000.  Dawes,  who  was  in  the  chair,  ruled  it  to  be  in 
order,  but  an  appeal  was  taken,  and  the  House,  by  a  vote  of 
60  yeas  to  67  nays,  refused  to  sustain  the  ruling. 

Butler's  next  move  was  to  get  his  bill  hitched  on  to  an  ap- 
priation  bill.  He  made  the  first  effort  to  accomplish  this  on 
Feb.  11,  when  he  moved  to  suspend  the  rules  so  as  to  instruct 
the  Appropriations  Committee  to  bring  in  the  bill  as  a  part  of 
the  Miscellaneous  Appropriation  bill,  then  about  to  be  reported 
to  the  House.  He  was  beaten  by  a  vote  of.  81  yeas  to  119 
nays,  but  he  gained  a  point — he  got  a  showing  of  hands  ;  he 
knew  the  strength  of  his  forces,  and  could  see  how  many 
recruits  ne  must  get  to  win.  He  had  foreseen  that  it  was  es- 
sential to  secure  the  help  of  the  outgoing  members,  who  num- 
bered nearly  100,  and  there  was  only  one  way  to  do  this  :  by 
allowing  them  to  share  in  the  profits  of  the  proposed  raid  on 
the  Treasury.  He  therefore  inserted  the  words,  "  including 
members  of  the  XLHd  Congress,"  the  effect  of  which  was  to 
make  the  increase  retroactive — going  back  two  years. 

Up  to  this  time  comparatively  few  members  had  faith  in  the 
process  of  the  movement,  and  very  little  had  been  said  about 
it  in  the  informal  canvasses  in  the  lobbies  and  cloak  rooms, 
which  influence  the  disposition  of  bills  far  more  than  the 
debates  upon  the  floor.  Now  it  was  seen  that  the  bill  had  a 
strong  backing  of  pledged  supporters,  and  an  active  canvass  for 
recruits  began.  Late  in  the  night  of  Monday  the  25th,  Butler 
sprung  his  bill  upon  the  House,  as  an  amendment  to  the  Ex- 
ecutive, Legislative,  and  Judicial  Appropriation  bills,  which 
had  come  back  from  the  Senate  with  amendments.  No  one 
but  the  friends  of  the  measure  had  notice  of  his  intention.  A 
large  number  of  members  had  gone  home  on  the  assurance  of 


876  HOW  THE   BACK-PAY   BILL  WAS  CARRIED   THROUGH. 

Garfield  that  the  bill  would  be  called  up  only  to  get  it  in  place, 
and  that  he  expected  no  action  upon  it.  Garfield  protested, 
but  Butler  insisted  on  a  vote  on  his  amendment,  and  carried  it 
by  a  vote  of  71  to  67,  on  a  vote  by  tellers  in  Committee  of  the 
Whole.  The  Credit  Mobilier  debate  intervened  next  day,  and 
it  was  Friday  before  the  question  came  up  again.  Butler's 
amendment,  adopted  in  Committee  ot  the  Whole,  was  rejected 
by  the  House,  on  a  call  of  the  yeas  and  nays,  by  a  vote  of  69 
to  121.  Butler  changed  his  vote  to  No,  in  order  to  move  a  re- 
consideration. 

Next  morning  he  made  the  motion,  and  promised  if  it  was 
carried  to  admit  an  amendment,  prepared  by  Sargent,  fixing 
the  salary  at  $6,500,  with  no  allowance  for  traveling  expenses. 
This  seemed  a  fair  proposition,  and  the  recommendation  was 
carried  without  much  opposition.  Sargent  offered  his  amend- 
ment, but  by  the  time  it  began  to  dawn  upon  the  minds  of  the 
members  who  opposed  an  increase,  that,  if  any  change  were 
made  in  the  salary,  the  whole  question  would,  in  the  end,  go 
to  a  Conference  Committee  of  six  men,  who  could  put  in  any 
amount  they  pleased,  and  then  force  the  House  to  agree  to 
their  report,  or  run  some  risk  of  losing  the  entire  Appropriation 
bill,  which  would  make  an  extra  session  necessary.  Sar- 
gent's amendment  narrowly  escaped  defeat,  the  vote  being  100 
to  97.  Amendments  offered  by  Garfield  were  adopted,  raising 
the  salaries  of  all  the  clerks  in  the  House,  and  adding  15  per 
cent,  to  the  pay  of  all  other  employees,  and  adding  82,000  a 
year  to  the  salaries  of  the  Assistant  Secretaries  of  the  General 
Departments. 

The  bill  went  to  the  Senate,  and  when  the  question  arose  on 
concurring  in  the  salary  admendment,  some  Senators  opposed 
it  because  it  did  not  increase  their  pay  enough,  and  others 
because  they  thought  it  wrong  to  make  any  increase.  Both 
these  elements  of  opposition  united  to  defeat  a  motion  to  con- 
cur.    The  vote  stood  23  to  36. 

The  bill  then  went,  of  necessity,  to  a  conference  committee. 
Speaker  Blaine  now  took  a  hand  in  the  game,  and  appointed  as 
the  House  conferees  Garfield,  Butler,  and  Randall,  knowing 


f  JOBBING   COEVAL   WITH   GOVERNMENT.  377 

that  the  two  latter  were  in  favor  of  a  larger  increase  of  salary 
than  the  House  had,  at  any  time,  endorsed.  They  were  both 
advocates  of  a  beaten  proposition,  and  it  was  in  violation  of  a 
well-recognized  jDrinciple  of  parliamentary  practice  to  appoint 
either  of  them  on  the  Committee.  The  Senate  conferees, 
named  by  the  Vice-President,  were  all  high-salary  men,  who 
insisted  that  $6,500  was  not  enough,  and  would  be  less  than 
the  Pacific  Coast  Senators  got  already,  with  their  mileage. 
The  Conference  agreed  to  put  another  $1,000  on,  making  the 
salary  $7,500,  and  they  restored  Butler's  provision  for  the 
payment  of  actual  traveling  expenses,  and  retained  the  retro- 
active clause,  dating  the  increase  back  to  March  4,  1871.  The 
President's  salary,  and  those  of  the  other  officials,  they  left  as 
passed  by  the  House.  The  report  was  made  to  the  House  on 
Monday  morning,  March  3.  It  was  vehemently  denounced  by 
Farnsworth  and  others,  and  freely  defended,  on  the  ground 
that  the  Senators  were  so  stubborn  that  the  House  conferees 
had  to  yield  for  fear  of  losing  the  bill.  The  shameful  retro- 
active clause  did  not  find  a  single  apologist,  either  in  this  or 
in  any  previous  debate.  It  was  vigorously  assailed  and  de- 
nounced, but  no  one  had  the  hardihood  to  say  a  word  in  its 
favor.  Everybody  knew  that  it  was  a  barefaced  robbery  of 
the  Treasury  of  nearly  $1,500,000— a  bribe  of  $5,000  a  piece 
to  induce  outgoing  members  to  vote  to  increase  the  pay  of 
their  successors.  The  provision  doubling  the  President's 
salary  escaped  with  very  little  criticism.  Members  were  so 
much  occupied  with  the  question  of  their  own  pay  that  they 
gave  small  attention  to  the  portions  of  the  bill  relating  to  other 
officials. 

The  conference  report  was  finally  adopted  by  the  House  by 
yeas,  103  ;  nays,  94.  This  was  a  fair  test  vote,  although  the 
liigh  salary  men ,  tricky  to  the  last,  tried  to  make  it  appear 
otherwise  by  falsely  saying  that  the  bill  would  be  lost  if  the 
report  was  rejected.  The  effect  of  rejecting  the  report  would 
have  been  to  send  the  bill  to  a  new  conference  committee, 
which  could  have  reported  back  in  an  hour  with  the  salary 


378        THE  EFFECT  OF  THE  BACK-PAY  GRAB. 

amendment  stricken  out.  Every  member  who  voted  yea  must, 
therefore,  be  held  to  have  favored  the  salary  grab,  retroactive 
clause  and  all.  It  was  late  Sunday  night  before  a  vote  was 
had  in  the  Senate  on  adopting  the  report.  The  result  was 
yeas,  36  ;  nays,  27.  The  bill  was  signed  by  the  President  the 
same  niglit.  Under  the  retroactive  provision  dating  the  in- 
creased pay  to  Congressmen  back  two  years,  every  member  re- 
ceived $5,000  as  extra  compensation  for  services  in  the  Forty- 
second  Congress,  less  sum  already  drawn  by  him  as  mileage. 
The  amount  of  money  taken  from  the  Treasury  for  this  pur- 
pose we  cannot  give  with  accuracy,  because  we  do  not  know 
the  exact  amount  of  the  mileage  to  be  deducted.  At  a  moder- 
ate estimate  it  was  $1,400,000. 

No  justification  was  attempted  in  either  the  Senate  or  the 
House  for  dating  back  the  increased  salary.  It  was  so  dis- 
graceful a  proceeding  that  it  admitted  of  no  defense.  The 
members  of  Congress,  in  accepting  their  offices,  agreed  to 
serve  for  the  salary  provided  by  law.  On  the  last  day  but  one 
of  their  term  of  office,  they  voted  themselves  nearly  $5,000 
apiece  as  additional  pay.  They  had  the  power  to  do  it,  and 
are  amenable  to  no  punishmant  except  such  as  their  constitu- 
ents may  provide  for  them  at  the  next  election  ;  but  their  con- 
duct in  a  moral  point  of  view  is  very  little  better  than  that  of 
a  merchant's  clerk  who  should  increase  his  salary  by  helping 
himself  from  his  employer's  cash  drawer. 

Observe  the  effect  of  the  back-pay  and  other  swindling 
schemes  of  its  class  : 

The  total  amount  of  the  various  appropriation  bills  passed  at 
that  scandalous  session  of  Congress  exceeds  the  amount  of  the 
previous  session  about  fifty-four  millions  of  dollars  :  The 
details  of  the  various  appropriations  of  18T3  are  as  follows  : 
Preliminary  deficiency,  $1,699,833  ;  Texan  border  commission, 
$18,490  ;  pension,  $30,480,000  ;  American  and  British  claims 
commission,  $613,500  ;  Indian,  $5,512,218  ;  fortification,  $1,- 
899,000  ;  consular  and  diplomatic,  $1,311,359  ;  Military  Aca- 
demy, $344,317  ;  legislative,  executive  and  judicial,  estimated. 


JOBBING   COEVAL  WITH  GOVERNMENT.  379 

^19,500,000  ;  naval,  122,275,757  ;  army,  $31,796,008  ;  Post- 
Office,  $3,529,107  ;  river  and  harbor,  $6,112,900  ;  sundry 
civil,  $32,175,415  ;  deficiency,  $9,242,871— total,  $195,310,- 
839. 

Truly  the  43d  Congress  was  a  shameless  body.  The  corrupt 
members  from  the  extreme  Puritan  states  exceeded  in  effront- 
ery those  from  Pennsylvania  or  Kansas.  In  the  last  hours  of 
the  session  after  the  Cr<^dit  Mobilier  case  had  been  disposed  of 
in  the  House,  we  had  the  most  extraordinary  spectacle  of  the 
session  presented  by  a  colleague  of  Oakes  Ames,  of  John  B. 
Alley,  of  Samuel  E.  Hooper,  of  Mr.  Dawes,  and  of  Senator 
Wilson,  another  Representative  from  Massachusetts,  the  Hon. 
Ginery  Twichell,  openly  and  actively  lobbying  on  the  floor  of 
the  House  for  the  passage  of  a  bill,  introduced  by  himself,  in 
favor  of  a  railroad  corporation  of  which  he  is  president.  When 
the  point  of  order  had  twice  been  made  upon  him,  that  he  could 
not  vote  in  favor  of  a  bill  in  which  he  was  personally  interested, 
the  Hon.  Ginery  Twichell  left  his  own  desk  to  take  a  seat 
beside  the  tellers,  upon  the  final  division  of  the  House  on  the 
question  of  the  passage  of  the  bill,  and  personally  expostu- 
lated with  members  who  were  voting  "  nay."  Evidently  the 
example  of  Oakcs  Ames  and  the  lessons  of  investigation 
were  utterly  thrown  away  upon  the  Hon.  Ginery  Twichell." 

Midst  all  of  this  scandal  the  moral  and  Christian  world  was 
doing  notliing  to  show  its  disgust  at  wliat  was  going  on  at 
Washington.  The  great  business  house  of  Phelps,  Dodge  & 
Co.,  of  New  York,  whose  leading  partner  was  the  patron  of 
ortliodox  philanthropy,  was  at  the  same  time  paying  $271,000 
to  the  government  to  be  let  out  of  prosecution  for  smuggling,  and 
the  moral  newspapers  were  pompously  parading  the  following 
solemn  declaration  of  Mr.  John  Alexander,  of  Philadelpliia : 

"  By  the  Grace  and  Providence  of  God  enabling  mc,  I  -will  contribute 
to  the  treasury  of  the  National  Association  for  securing  the  amendment  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  sum  o^  Jive  hundred  dollars  annu- 
ally, ur^til  an  amendment  (in  substance  such  as  at  present  proposed  ly  the  A^- 
sociation)  shall  he  made  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 


380         THE  GREAT  NEEDS  OF  THE  PRESENT. 

"  If  this  amendment  is  not  made  during  my  lifetime,  I  shall  hope  to  con- 
tinue the  aforesaid  annual  payments  through  the  agency  of  the  legal  repre- 
sentatives of  my  estate. 

"  I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  which  strengtheneth  me.'' 

After  such  an  exhibition  of  pious  stupidity  we  may  answer 
the  question  which  every  reader  is  probably  putting  in  his  mind : 
What  can  we  do  about  it  ? 

And  this  we  answer  in  the  words  of  that  admirable  review, 
the  New  York  Nation,  with  whose  advice  we  shall  close  our 
chapter : 

"  We  maintain,  and  with  increased  confidence,"  says  the 
Nation,  "  that  the  shameful  corruption  in  the  Government 
which  is  showing  itself  side  by  side  with  overwhelming  Repub- 
lican majorities  all  over  the  country,  is  a  fresh  proof  that  the 
Republican  party  is  a  common  human  organization,  for  the 
ordinary  political  purposes — namely,  the  embodiment  in  legis- 
lation of  a  small  cluster  of  ideas  ;  that  that  purpose  was  car- 
ried out  at  the  close  of  the  rebellion  ;  that  the  party  is  now 
functus  officio,  and  has  for  several  years  been  kept  in  office  by 
the  popular  dread  of  "  reaction  "  and  the  force  of  the  great 
patronage  and  enormous  handling  of  money  resulting  from  the 
war ;  and  that  in  the  absence  of  any  great  controlling  ideas, 
of  real  work,  and  of  a  powerful  and  respectable  opposition,  its 
leading  men,  who,  for  all  practical  purposes,  are  the  party  and 
represent  it,  have  grown  careless,  and  insolent,  and  indifferent 
to  public  opinion,  and  finally  corrupt.  There  is  nothing  eccle- 
siastical about  them  or  it.  It  has  no  divine  mission,  and  they 
have  no  personal  consecration.  It  is  simply  the  consensus  of  a 
large  body  of  the  American  people  on  a  few  points  of  home 
policy,  and  they  are  a  number  of  not  very  remarkable  gentlemen, 
whom  the  American  people  has  put  in  charge  of  its  aifaire. 

"  The  remedy  is  to  be  found  in  the  formation  of  another' 
organization  for  other  purposes.     What  these  purposes  are  we 
have  frequently  intimated.     We  may  venture  to  repeat  them — 
the  reform  of  the  civil  service  ;  the  restoration  of  the  judiciary 
to  its  old  position  of  independence  and  respectability ;  the  sim- 


JOBBING    COEVAL   WITH   GOVERNMENT.  ^  381 

pliiication  of  political  machinery,  so  that  honest  and  industrious 
citizens  can  attend  to  their  political  affairs  without  the  help  of 
professional  tricksters ;  the  release  of  the  States  from  the  con 
stant  interference  and  supervision  of  the  central  authority ;  the 
purification  of  Congress  by  the  reform  of  the  tarifi,  and  the 
prohibition  of  grants,  subsidies,  bounties, "  protective  "  duties, 
and  the  total  exclusion  of  Congressmen  from  a  share  in  the 
appointing  power.  These  objects  can  only  be  obtained  by  a 
party  formed  for  that  purpose,  and  for  nothing  else.  Whether 
we  are  near  the  formation  of  any  such  party  Ave  do  not  know. 
"We  acknowledge  with  sorrow  and  disappointment  that  the 
events  of  last  year  undoubtedly  postponed  it,  but  we  would 
fain  believe  that  those  who  last  year  honestly  strove  to  bring 
about  a  better  state  of  things,  have  not  abated  one  jot  of  heart 
or  hope.  We  are  sure  that  they  must  find  in  w^hat  is  now  pass- 
ing both  abundant  justification  for  their  course  and  abundant 
reason  for  trying  again,  whenever  the  opportunity  offers.  It  is 
needless  to  say,  of  course,  that  any  such  organization  would 
contain,  if  successful,  w^hatever  good  elements  the  Republican 
party  now  contains,  and  many  good  elements  which  that  party 
does  not  contain,  and  nothing  short  of  this  combination  of  the 
good  of  all  parties  will  save  us.  The  good  Republicans  are  not 
likely  to  be  removed  in  chariots  of  fire  when  the  party  organi- 
zation disappears.'* 


CHAPTEE  XXL 


THE  WHISKEY  FRAUDS. 

In  February,  1875,  there  was  received  at  the  Treasury  De- 
partment, information  which  led  to  an  exposure  scarcely  less 
startling  than  the  famous  Credit  Mohilier  transactions,  and 
which  in  its  final  results  has  been  far  more  decisive,  and  in 
that  sense,  far  more  satisfactory.  Like  the  CrSdit  Mohilier,  it 
reached  close  to  the  doors  of  the  White  House ;  but  in  this 
case,  too,  no  sufficient  evidence  was  discovered  for  believing 
the  President  dishonest.  He  was  evidently  only  the  tool  of 
his  friends.  The  country  congratulates  itself  that  though  its 
chief  magistracy  has  been  so  thoroughly  belittled  by  the  Pres- 
ident, it  has  not  been  stained  by  his  corruption. 

In  the  early  stages  of  the  preparation  of  this  book,  the  au- 
thor gave  a  detailed  account  (page  242)  of  the  manner  of 
operation  of  the  "  Whiskey  Ring."  In  the  light  of  the  recent 
trials,  and  those  yet  to  come,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  operations 
of  these  distillers  were  very  correctly  given.  This  circum- 
stance shows  that  all  parties  the  least  familiar  with  affairs  at 
Washington,  were  fully  apprised  of  this  thoroughly  organized 
effort  to  defraud  the  government.  Why,  then,  have  not  these 
frauds  been  punished  before  ?  Simply  because,  until  the  advent 
of  Bristow,  we  have  lacked  a  public  official,  who  either  had  the 
moral  courage  to  fight  the  "  Ring,"  or  whose  record  was  suffi- 
ciently unstained  to  render  such  a  fight  effective.  It  was  well 
known  that  the  "  Ring  "  possessed  unlimited  means ;  that  they 


POWER   OP   THE   RING.  383 

could  hire  the  most  skillful  counsel,  and  could  also  "hire" 
almost  any  kind  of  witnesses  that  they  desired.  There  was 
too,  another  great  obstacle.  It  was  one  thing  to  know  that 
these  frauds  were  being  perpetrated,  and  another,  and  very 
different  matter  to  prove  them  so  conclusively  that  a  jury  could 
not  do  otherwise  than  convict.  The  "  Ring  "  cared  little  that 
it  was  known  that  they  were  defrauding  the  revenues,  so  long 
as  they  could  successfully  stop  any  effort  to  bring  them  to  jus- 
tice. So  long  had  they  succeeded  in  doing  this,  that  they  be- 
came so  confident  of  their  power,  that  they  did  not  believe 
that  they  could  be  disturbed.  They  had  either  ignored  or 
quieted  Boutwell  and  Richardson,  and  supposed  they  could  do 
the  same  with  Bristow.  So  surprised  were  they  at  their  mis- 
take, that  Bristow  had  matters  well  in  his  own  hands,  before 
they  recovered  themselves  and  were  ready  to  act.. 

Our  previous  account  did  not  exhibit  either  the  magnitude 
or  the  impudence  of  the  Ring  in  anything  like  the  true  propor- 
tions. The  great  difficulty  with  which  it  seems  to  labor  was 
not  that  some  of  the  government  officers  were  corrupt,  but  that 
there  were  some  honest  ones,  who  occasionally,  though  very 
rarely,  gave  them  trouble.  Even  the  efforts  which  were  at 
first  made  in  behalf  of  honest  administration  of  the  laws  were 
rendered  useless  by  the  thorough  system  with  which  the  opera- 
tions were  carried  on.  Every  movement  about  the  distilleries 
was  so  guarded,  that  the  parties  who  were  collecting  evidence, 
were  maltreated,  and  even  threatened  with  death ;  while  at 
Washington,  some  of  the  officers  highest  in  the  government 
service,  were  in  the  pay  of  the  "  Ring.'*  Consequently,  when- 
ever there  was  any  plan  devised,  these  parties  in  the  pay  of 
the  Ring  immediately  telegraphed  the  news  to  where  the  inves- 
tigation was  to  take  place,  and  the  distillers  and  collectors 
would  be  ready  to  have  everything  going  perfectly  right.  When 
the  government  detectives  retired,  they  would  resume  their 
regular  operations. 

With  these  parties  who  thus  kept  them  informed,  the  Ring, 
of  course,  divided  equally.    The  regular  tax  levied  by  Congress 


384  THE   WHISKEY  FRAUDS. 

is  fifty  cents  per  gallon.  The  distillers  paid  the  collectors 
thirty  cents.  These  collectors,  by  fixing  the  returns,  paid  a 
small  portion  to  the  government,  (it  need  hardly  be  said  that 
the  portion  was  as  small  as  it  was  safe  to  make  it,)  and  divided 
the  balance  among  themselves.  How  much  this  amounted  to, 
to  these  corrupt  officials,  may  be  estimated  from  a  paragraph 
published  in  the  Chronicle  (Washington)  of  May  8th,  1876. 
It  says :  "  One  of  the  effects  of  breaking  up  the  whiskey  rings 
of  the  country  has  been  a  large  increase  in  the  internal  reve- 
nue receipts  for  the  month  of  April.  The  increase  has  been 
over  three  and  a  half  millions  as  compared  with  the  same 
month  last  year,  which  can  be  attributed  to  no  other  cause 
than  the  faithfulness  and  vigilance  which  now  mark  the  collec- 
tion of  the  revenue." 

To  the  distillers,  this  difference  in  the  tax  amounted  to  a 
practical  monopoly.  Of  course  distillers  who  paid  the  regular 
tax  of  fifty  cents  could  not  begin  to  compete  with  those  who 
paid  only  thirty  cents.  They  must  either  join  the  Ring  or  quit 
the  business. 

Secretary  Bristow  labored  for  a  long  time  to  correct  these 
evils,  but  the  paid  servants  of  the  Ring,  within  his  own  force, 
thwarted  him.  At  one  time,  it  was  determined  to  make  a  gen- 
eral transfer  of  the  collectors,  sending,  for  instance,  those  at 
St.  Louis  to  Philadelphia.  This,  of  course,  would  probably 
have  brought  exposure,  as  faithful  officials  would,  in  some  cases, 
have  gone  where  corrupt  ones  had  been.  But  immediately 
the  representatives  flew  to  Washington,  and  soon  the  President 
was  influenced  to  revoke  the  order,  and  the  "Ring"  was  happy. 

This  proved  conclusively  to  Mr.  Bristow,  that  whatever  was 
done,  must  be  done  secretly,  and  without  even  the  knowledge 
of  his  subordinates.  A  happy  discord  occurred  in  St.  Louis, 
which  aided  him  greatly.  The  two  leading  papers  of  St.  Louis 
had  a  disagreement  which  resulted  in  February,  1875,  in  the 
receipt,  by  Secretary  Bristow,  of  a  message  from  Mr.  Fishback, 
owner  of  the  St.  Louis  Democrat^  confidentially  informing  him 
that  if  he  (Bristow)  would  appoint  a  reliable  agent,  he  him- 


PLAN   OP   EXPOSING  THE  RING.  385 

self  would  give  liim  such  aid  as  would  expose  the  St.  Louis 
Whiskey  Ring.  Mr.  Colony,  commercial  editor  of  the  Dem- 
ocrat, was  thereupon  appointed,  and  at  once  began  operations. 
All  communications  were  made  with  Bristow  personally,  or 
with  solicitor  Bluford  Wilson.  Such  secrecy  was  necessary  in 
conducting  the  investigations,  that  only  a  very  few  persons 
were  taken  into  confidence,  and  much  of  the  correspondence 
was  conducted  in  a  new  cipher,  through  a  citizen  of  Washing- 
ton totally  unconnected  with  the  government.  In  this  way 
legal  proof  and  matters  of  record  were  fully  obtained  before 
an  arrest  was  made. 

Mr.  Colony,  and  his  assistants,  went  to  work  by  appointing 
twenty  men  to  watch  the  distilleries  and  rectifying  houses,  and 
determine  the  amount  and  character  of  the  work  done  after 
dark,  all  of  which  is  illegal.  These  watchmen  .were  many  of 
them  assaulted  and  beaten ;  but  enough  was  discovered  to  piece 
out  the  other  revelations,  which  were  mainly  as  to  the  amount 
of  whiskey  shipped  from  the  city.  Mr.  Colony,  to  ascertain 
this,  made  an  exhaustive  examination  of  all  the  freight  ship- 
ments by  all  the  lines  for  quite  a  period,  professedly  in  his 
capacity  as  commercial  editor.  These  returns  show  the  excess 
of  fraudulent  whiskey.  The  fraud  itself  was  consummated  in 
various  ways,  all  of  which  require  connivance  on  the  part  of 
the  revenue  agent. 

We  cannot  better  show  the  opposition  which  these  parties 
met  with,  than  by  quoting  the  testimony  of  the  detective  who 
went  to  the  Pacific  coast  to  unearth  the  frauds  there. 

Special  Agent  D.  L.  Phillips  of  Illinois,  detailed  to  investi- 
gate the  Whiskey  Rings  supposed  to  exist  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
made  a  report  to  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  main 
facts  are  as  follows :  Mr.  Phillips  reached  San  Francisco  on  the 
14th  of  September,  1875,  and  one  of  the  first  discoveries  which 
he  made  was  that  men  earnestly  intent  upon  enforcement  of 
law,  if  they  hailed  from  States  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
were  not  regarded  with  favor,  either  by  those  in  office  or  by 
distillers  or  liquor  dealers  on  the  Pacific  coast.  He  also  found 
17 


386  THE  WHISKEY   FRAUDS. 

great  demoralization  in  the  ciyil  service,  which  was  caused  by 
the  partisan  and  despotic  authority  of  those  in  California  who 
control  Federal  patronage  at  Washington.  Honest  and  up- 
right men  who  have  self-respect  and  moral  worth  do  not  want 
office  in  California,  nor  could  they  find  employment  in  public 
service  if  they  desired.  The  remote  situation  of  the  Pacific 
coast  from  the  seat  of  government,  and  the  general  understand- 
ing that  appointments  to  office  are  really  made  by  Senators 
and  Representatives  in  Congress,  inspired,  he  said,  in  all  office- 
holders a  very  lively  and  grateful  sense  of  loyalty,  not  to  the 
Government  or  any  of  its  departments,  but  to  the  Senator  or 
Representative  through  whom  such  appointments  are  held,  and 
the  results  are  that  so  long  as  offices  can  be  held  under  such 
circumstances  and  surroundings  the  civil  service  must  be  utterly 
debased,  venal,  and  purely  personal,  and  such,  he  says,  in  his 
judgment,  is  the  condition  of  affairs  in  California. 

It  was  assumed  almost  everywhere  he  went  that  there  was  a 
"Whiskey  Ring  in  San  Francisco,  and  that  to  build  up  its  inter- 
ests, protect  its  members,  and  secure  its  immunity,  the  inter- 
ests of  brandy  and  whiskey  distillation  in  all  other  portions  of 
the  State  were  oppressed  and  well-nigh  destroyed.  The  dis- 
tillation of  whiskey  from  wheat  has  for  many  years  been  a 
favored  interest.  It  has  been  more  or  less  mixed  up  in  all  po- 
litical struggles,  and  spending  its  money  freely,  it  had  its  share 
of  political  recognition. 

Mr.  Phillips  says  he  investigated  carefully  the  accusations 
made  by  Senator  Sargent  against  Revenue  Agent  Clark,  now 
on  duty  at  San  Francisco.  He  found  that  the  affidavits  upon 
which  the  charges  were  based  were  made  by  distillers,  whiskey 
dealers,  and  one  Johnson,  a  Revenue  Agent,  who  was  admitted 
to  have  been  a  spy  upon  Clark.  The  attacks  upon  him  were 
intended,  he  thinks,  to  impair  the  confidence  of  the  Depart- 
ment in  his  honesty,  and  thereby  secure  the  removal  of  a  pub- 
lic servant  who  was  proving  troublesome  in  California  to  rev- 
enue officials  and  distillers  engaged  in  plundering  the  Govern- 
ment.    Mr.  Phillips  thinks  that  Clark  had  abundant  reason 


SAN   FRANCISCO   OFFICIALS.  387 

for  urging  the  Collector  to  seize  the  Antioch  distillery,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  it  was  owned  by  Charles  Joel,  who  had 
been  a  member  of  the  California  Legislature,  and  had  voted 
for  Mr.  Sargent  to  be  United  States  Senator. 

Mr.  Phillips  says  that  the  Executive  has  made  many  remov- 
als and  appointments,  without  consultation  with  members  of 
either  House  of  Congress,  and  asks  why  not  make  the  rule 
uniform  and  apply  it  to  California.  Until  this  is  done,  there 
will  be  no  improvement  in  the  public  service  in  that  State. 

The  following  extract  from  Mr.  Phillips*  report  is  very  in- 
teresting : 

"About  the  time  that  Senator  Sargent  filed  his  charges 
against  Clark,  it  was  learned  that  one  Chas.  Warner,  formerly 
engaged  in  distilling  at  Atlanta  and  Canton,  111.,  and  now 
residing  in  the  town  of  Watsonville,  Cal.,  was  in  possession  of 
important  information  concerning  frauds  on  the  revenue  in  the 
distillation  of  whiskey,  at  San  Francisco.  After  protracted 
efforts  and  earnest  protestations  on  his  part  of  personal  dan- 
ger, Warner  was  prevailed  upon  to  surrender  certain  books 
kept  by  him,  which  disclosed  most  startling  frauds  on  the  rev- 
enue in  1865-6  and  1868-9,  and  these  frauds  were  perpetrated 
by  the  very  men  who  have  since,  and  do  now,  control  the  dis- 
tilling and  liquor  business  of  California,  especially  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

*  •  The  details  ot  these  frauds,  explained  at  length  and  sworn 
to  by  Warner,  are  on  file  in  the  office  of  the  Commissioner  of 
Internal  Revenue,  and  need  not  be  set  out  in  this  report.  The 
amount  of  these  frauds  approaches  to  nearly  $1,500,000,  and 
covers  a  little  over  two  years'  time.  The  men  who  perpetuated 
them  are  men  who  met  Mr.  Clark  with  insolence,  abuse,  and 
threats,  and  some  of  their  affidavits  form  the  basis  in  part  of 
the  charges  of  Mr.  Sargent  against  him. 

"  Mr.  Warner,  from  whom  I  was  mainly  instrumental  in  pro- 
curing information,  and  whose  testimony  was  taken  in  my 
room  in  the  night,  at  his  earnest  request,  with  no  one  present 
but  Supervisor  Hawley  and  myself,  has  been  threatened  with 


388  THE  WHISKEY   FRAUDS. 

death  for  his  disclosures,  and  informed  of  men  who  will  mur- 
der him.  He  has  written  to  Hawley  to  furnish  him  protection, 
and  says  to  escape  assassination  he  expects  to  be  forced  to 
leave  California.  It  is  well  known  that  hired  spies  in  the 
liquor  interests  the  past  Winter,  watched  by  day  and  night 
every  step  of  Hawley,  Clark,  and  myself,  and  every  word  in- 
cautiously uttered  was  known  and  reported  to  Government! 
officials  and  Whiskey  men  continually." 

Mr.  Phillips  details  at  considerable  length  the  attempts 
made  by  himself  and  Supervisor  Hawley  to  prosecute  persons 
engaged  in  defrauding  the  Government,  but  failed,  as  he  says, 
because  of  the  failure  of  the  District- Attorney's  office  to  do  its 
duty.  He  became  convinced,  not  only  of  a  total  disinclination 
to  prosecute  distillers  and  liqaor  dealers  for  the  violation  of 
law,  lest  officials  should  be  found  involved,  but  of  a  fixed  de- 
termination in  the  District-Attorney's  office  not  to  do  so,  if 
escape  therefrom  was  possible.  He  closes  this  branch  of  his 
report  as  follows : 

"After  a  long  and  careful  observation,  I  am  convinced  that, 
under  the  present  Federal  officials  on  the  Pacific  coast,  the 
prosecution  and  conviction  of  guilty  distillers  and  whiskey 
dealers  in  San  Francisco  are  out  of  the  question.  I  wish,  however, 
to  say  that  in  the  Federal  Judges,  the  Government  has  great 
reason  to  take  an  earnest,  honest  pride.  They  are  able, 
learned,  patriotic,  and  just ;  and  no  man  can  more  keenly  feel 
than  they,  the  impossibility  of  faithfully  executing  law  and 
vindicating  the  just  claims  of  the  Government  as  matters  now 
stand." 

After  all  the  evidence  had  been  carefully  collected,  "  the 
lightning"  struck  with  a  vengeance.  Distilleries  were  seized, 
in  St.  Louis,  Chicago,  Milwaukee,  Indiana,  New  Orleans,  and 
a  few  in  other  smaller  places.  In  St.  Louis  over  thirty  parties 
were  at  once  indicted,  and  many  of  them  were  of  the  most 
respectable  men  in  the  city,  moving  in  the.  best  society.  In 
Chicago  over  sixty  were  indicted  at  one  time,  and  over  one 
nundred  indictments  in  all,  including  some  ol  the  most  prom- 


TESTIMONY  OP  M'GRUE.  389 

inent  men  in  the  city.  The  trials  were  speedy,  impartial,  and 
decisive,  resulting  in  almost  every  case  in  the  conviction  of  the 
accused.  Avery,  Chief  Clerk  of  the  Revenue  Bureau  at  Wash- 
ington, a  man  high  in  the  Government  service,  together  with 
Joyce  and  McKee,  were  sent  to  the  penitentiary  and  heavily 
fined.  A  host  of  minor  lights  in  ^the  "  Ring  "  have  gone  to 
keep  them  company.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  they  will 
not  be  so  jolly  a  band  as  when  they  were  filling  their  pockets 
with  Government  greenbacks. 

The  interest  of  the  country  has  centered  in  the  trials  at  St. 
Louis,  as  that  city  seemed  to  be  the  head-center  of  the  work, 
and  as  the  whole  fraud  has  been  there  laid  before  the  public  in 
the  trials  of  the  most  important  conspirators ;  we  cannot  give 
a  clear  idea  of  the  ways  in  which  these  things  were  carried 
out  in  any  other  way  so  well  as  by  giving  the  testimony  of  the 
man  who  confessed. 

In  the  trial  of  McDonald  and  Avery,  Deputy  Collector 
McGrue  testified  as  follows ;  I  came  to  St.  Louis  in  June, 
1871,  and  remained  until  November,  1872.  I  had  repeated 
conversations  witli  McDonald  and  Joyce  about  making  money 
out  of  illicit  distilling,  the  substance  of  which  was,  that  the 
distillers  should  be  protected  in  making  crooked  whiskey  on 
condition  that  they  should  give  a  certain  part  of  the  taxes 
saved  to  certain  parties.  From  September,  1871,  to  November, 
1872, 1  collected  money  from  the  distillers,  Bevis  &  Frazer, 
Thompson,  Curran  &  Ulrich,  to  pay  to  other  parties.  I  had 
a  talk  with  all  the  distillers  mentioned,  and  assured  them  that 
they  could  run  in  violation  of  law,  and  they  would  be  protected 
by  Government  Officers  on  the  conditions  mentioned.  I  did 
this  on  the  authority  of  Joyce  and  McDonald.  The  amounts 
were  collected  every  Saturday  night  and  averaged  $8,500  per 
week. 

The  distillers  brought  it  to  me  at  my  room,  generally  about 
noon,  and  I  disbursed  it.  A  certain  sum  was  taken  out  to  pay 
the  gangers  and  the  storekeepers,  and  the  balance  was  divided 
into  five  parts.     The  money  for  the  subordinates  was  given  to 


S90  THE   WHISKEY   FRAUDS. 

John  Leavenworth  for  disbursement.  Of  the  other  five  pack- 
ages, I  kept  one,  McDonald  got  one,  Joyce  got  one,  and  the 
other  two  were  given  to  Leavenworth  with  the  understanding 
that  McKee  got  one,  and  Ford  the  other.  This  work  began  in 
the  first  part  of  September,  1871.  McDonald  complained  once 
tliat  Joyce  ought  not  to  receive  as  much  as  the  rest,  and  so  on 
one  occasion  I  gave  him  $200  more  than  the  rest,  without  giv- 
ing Joyce  his  full  one-fifth.  By  the  arrangement  the  distillers 
were  to  retain  one-half  of  the  profits  on  crooked  whiskey. 
Leavenworth  was  a  ganger,  and  part  of  the  time,  storekeeper. 
The  tax  on  whiskey  at  that  time  was  fifty  cents  per  gallon, 
and  I  collected  about  thirty  cents  per  gallon.  It  was  under- 
stood at  the  supervisor  s  office,  that  the  gangers,  store-keepers, 
and  other  subordinates  were  to  receive  from  $1.00  to  $1.60  per 
barrel,  but  generally  Leavenworth  paid  them  more.  I  took 
the  money  for  the  main  members  of  the  ring  to  the  supervisors, 
and  there  was  no  particular  disguise  about  my  delivering  it  to 
them.  I  always  set  aside  a  portion  of  the  money  ;  part  of  the 
time,  $100  per  week,  and  part  of  the  time  $300  per  week  for 
"Wm.  0.  Avery,  Chief  Clerk  of  the  Internal  Revenue  Bureau  at 
Washington.  The  increase  was  made  at  the  instance  of  Joyce, 
who  came  from  Washington  once  and  said  that  Avery  was 
complaining  of  not  receiving  enough  money ;  hence  we  in- 
creased it  to  $300  per  week. 

Randolph  W.  Ulrich,  one  of  the  most  prominent  distillers  in 
St.  Louis,  testified  that  he  had  talked  several  times  with  Joyce 
in  1871,  about  making  crooked  whiskey,  but  that  he  declined 
entering  into  any  arrangement.  Subsequently,  however,  when 
he  found  that  several  other  distillers  were  in  the  illicit  business, 
he  went  in  and  remained  till  October,  1872.  He  had  several 
talks  with  Fitzroy,  and  paid  him  money  several  times.  He 
reported  the  amount  of  crooked  whiskey  to  McGrue  and 
afterwards  to  Fitzroy.  He  paid  thirty  and  thirty-five  cents  per 
gallon.  He  did  not  know  where  the  money  went  and  did  not 
care. 

Alfred  Bevis,  of  the  firm  of  Bevis  and  Frazer,  one  of  the 


TESTIMONY  OP  ALFRED  BEVIS.  391 

witnesses,  testified  to  the  crooked  whiskey  operations  of  his 
firm,  carried  on  with  the  knowledge. and  collusion  of  McDon- 
ald and  Joyce,  and  said  that  the  firm  paid  the  Ring  from  83,000 
to  15,000  per  week,  and  previous  to  the  last  presidential  elec- 
tion he  paid  the  Ring  from  $10,000  to$20,000. 

His  firm,  he  said,  went  into  the  crooked  whiskey  business 
with  the  understanding  that  they  were  subserving  political  pur- 
poses and  would  he  protected  by  the  officers  there  and  at 
Washington.  The  witness  said  he  was  in  the  Collectors'  office 
when  the- records  were  destroyed,  the  destruction  of  which  was 
arranged  by  Joyce  and  Con.  Cannon,  the  latter  Chief  Clerk  of 
the  Collectors'  Office.  The  witness  had  been  shown  letters  by 
Joyce,  purporting  to  come  frOm  Avery  and  from  Babcock,  the 
President's  private  secretary,  giving  assurance  of  protection 
from  seizure ;  witness  had  one  of  these  in  his  possession  about 
twelve  hours,  having  taken  it  to  show  to  Frazer.  The  witness 
said  that  he  did  not  remember  reading  the  Babcock  letter,  but 
thought  it  was  signed  "Bab!"  The  Avery  letter  was  given 
him  by  Joyce  in  his  office.  There  were  reports  that  the  Ring 
was  in  danger  and  Joyce  showed  these  letters  to  convince  them 
that  they  were  protected  and  that  he  kept  posted.  They  were 
frequently  shown  letters  of  that  kind. 

What  a  sad  commentary  on  humanity !  What  a  discourag- 
ing thought  for  the  enthusiastic  believer  in  Republicanism,  that 
her  citizens  combine  together  to  forward  a  scheme  of  wholesale 
fraud,  and  that  the  most  trusted  officers  of  the  Government 
are  leagued  with  them.  But  still  more  stunning  to  our  national 
pride  to  know  that  the  officers  of  our  Government  actually  in- 
augurated this  plan  of  wholesale  fraud  and  compelled  those  to 
go  into  it  whom  they  could  not  persuade.  It  is  an  ugly  fact 
that  officers  sworn  to  support  the  Government  and  faithfully 
execute  its  laws,  are  in  the  main  responsible  for  these  frauds. 
They  rendered  it  impossible  for  a  man  to  pay  the  honest  tax 
and  live.  Those  who  were  paying  but  thirty  cents  per  gallon 
tax  could  drive  out  of  the  market  and  into  bankruptcy  those 
who  honestly  paid  the  full  fifty  cents. 


892  THE  WHISKEY  FRAUDS. 

Against  all  the  parties  the  evidence  was  so  conclusive  as  to 
produce  a  conviction  except  in  tlie  case  of  Babcock.  The  coun- 
try has  this  consolation  at  least,  that  however  much  it  may 
have  been  degraded  by  the  treachery  of  its  chosen  officers,  it 
did  convict  and  punish  them.  Most  of  thena  are  now  serving 
out  contracts  with  the  Government  in  the  Penitentiary. 

The  case  of  General  Babcock  who  was  private  secretary  to 
the  President  has  been  an  exception  to  the  otherwise  uniform 
success  of  the  Government  in  convicting  the  accused.  Very 
strong  accusations  were  made,  that  he  being  private  secretary 
to  the  President,  and  thus  knowing  almost  the  first,  any  move- 
ment about  to  take  place,  informed  the  Ring.  The  charges 
failed  of  proof  sufficiently  conclusive  to  cause  the  jury  to  con- 
vict, but  the  general  way  that  Babcock's  defense  was  managed 
showed  the  public  quite  conclusively  that  he  was  guilty.  His 
counsel  seemed  to  rely  on  the  inability  of  the  prosecution  to 
prove  his  guilt  rather  than  their  ability  to  prove  his  innocence. 
The  very  fact  that  he,  on  a  very  moderate  salary,  was  living  in 
the  style  and  extravagance  of  a  large  income  did  not  help  the 
case  in  his  favor,  at  least  in  the  popular  mind. 

Since  his  acquittal  it  has  come  to  light  that  this  method  of 
proceeding  followed  by  his  counsel,  was  with  good  reason.  It 
transpires  that  just  before  his  trial  a  letter  was  written  by  the 
Attorney  General  to  the  various  prosecuting  officers,  that  no 
terms  must  be  made  with  any  guilty  man.  This  sounds  very 
well,  but  when  it  is  remembered  that  it  is  only  by  the  confes- 
sions and  testimony  of  guilty  parties  that  any  prosecution  could 
have  been  sustained,  it  is  equally  clear  that  no  guilty  man 
would  confess  and  testify  for  the  benefit  of  the  Government 
unless  he  could  be  secured  from  punishment  himself.  He 
would  have  no  object  in  doing  so.  This  letter  was  in  some 
way  left,  so  that  Babcock's  counsel  got  it,  and  straightway  it 
was  telegraphed  to  the  various  papers  throughout  the  land. 
Of  course  those  who  would  otherwise  have  testified  for  the  Gov- 
ernment sealed  their  lips,  and  the  prosecution  was  too  weak  to 
convict.     Why  the  Attorney  General  wrote  such  a  letter  at 


THE   ATTORNEY   GENERAL'S   LETTER.  393 

that  particular  time,  and  why  it  was  left  so  that  Babcock  could 
get  hold  of  it,  can  only  be  accounted  for,  that  Grant  and  Pierre- 
pont  are  very  stupid  men,  or  that  there  was  a  belief  among  our 
very  highest  Government  Officials  that  Babcock  was  guilty,  and 
a  determination  that  he  must  be  acquitted. 

Below  will  be  found  the  sentences  of  the  principal  men 
engaged  in  the  whiskey  ring  at  Chicago : 

A.  C.  Hesing,  two  years  imprisonment  and  a  fine  of  $5,000. 

H.  B.  Miller,  six  months  imprisonment  and  a  fine  of  $3,000. 

Frederick  L.  Reed  (Miller's  son-in-law),  one  day  imprison- 
ment and  a  fine  of  $1,000. 

William  Cooper,  three  months  imprisonment  and  $2,000 
fine. 

Jacob  Rehm  (the  squealer),  six  months  imprisonment  and 
a  fine  of  $10,000. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


OUR  NATIONAL  DISGRACE. 

As  if  the  arrest  and  conviction  of  some  of  the  most  trusted 
officers  of  the  Government  was  not  enough  to  almost  shake 
one's  faith  in  the  stability  of  republican  institutions,  the 
whiskey  frauds  were  followed  by  the  discovery  of  wholesale 
corruption  in  the  Secretary  of  War's  office,  the  accused  person 
being  no  less  than  the  Secretary  himself,  General  William  W. 
Belknap. 

Gen.  Belknap  was  comparatively  an  unknown  man  until 
President  Grant  nominated  him  for  Secretary  of  War.  He 
came  of  good  stock,  his  father.  Gen.  William  G.  Belknap,  hav- 
ing been  an  officer  in  the  regular  army  from  1813  to  1851, 
served  with  marked  gallantry  through  the  Florida  and  Mexican 
wars,  and  enjoyed  the  intimate  friendship  of  Gen.  Scott.  Wil- 
liam Worth  Belknap  was  born  at  Newburg,  N.  Y.,  on  the 
22d  of  September,  1829,  and  graduated  from  Princeton 
College  in  the  class  of  1848,  among  his  college  acquaint- 
ances, singularly  enough,  being  Messrs.  Clymer  and  Blackburn 
of  the  committee  that  has  just  exposed  his  guilt,  as  well  as 
Secretary  Robeson.  He  studied  law  at  Georgetown,  D.  C,  and 
in  1851  began  the  practice  of  his  profession  at  Keokuk,  la. 
He  served  one  term,  in  1857-8,  in  the  Iowa  Legislature  as  a 
democrat,  but  being  unwilling  to  give  countenance  to  the  Le- 
compton  swindle,  he  separated  from  the  radical  wing  of  his 
party,  and  was  known  as  a  Douglas  democrat  up  to  the  out- 


SKETCH   OF  GEN.   BELKNAP.  395 

break  of  the  Rebellion.  He  entered  the  army  as  Major  of  the 
15th  Infantry,  and  served  with  his  regiment  in  the  army  of 
the  Tennessee,  rising  through  the  various  grades  and  participat- 
ing in  the  battle  of  Shiloh,  siege  of  Corinth,  campaign  and 
siege  of  Atlanta.  After  the  capture  of  that  place,  he  marched 
with  Sherman  to  the  sea,  and  finally  to  Washington,,  taking  a 
prominent  part  in  all  the  actions  of  these  brilliant  campaigns. 
He  was  promoted  to  the  rank  of  Brigadier-General  for  special 
gallantry  in  the  memorable  battle  near  Atlanta,  in  which  his 
regiment  fought  from  either  side  of  the  line  of  breast-works, 
was  afterwards  breveted  Major-General,  and,  at  the  date  of  his 
muster-out,  on  the  24th  of  August,  1865,  was  regarded  by  Gen. 
Sherman  and  his  companions  as  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
and  promising  officers  of  the  army.  Shortly  afterward,  he  was 
appointed  Collector  of  Internal  Revenue  for  the  First  District 
of  Iowa,  and,  upon  Gen.  Rawlins'  death,  soon  after  Gen.  Grant 
entered  upon  the  Presidency  in  1869,  he  became  Secretary  of 
"War.  His  second  wife  was  then  living,  but  she  died  of  con- 
sumption in  the  latter  part  of  1870,  and  about  three  years  ago 
he  was  married  to  his  present  wife,  her  sister,  Mrs.  Bowers,  at 
Harrisburg,  Ky.,  her  birth-place,  at  the  residence  of  her  brother, 
Dr.  William  Tomlinson,  her  kinsman  John  H.  Pendleton  of 
Ohio,  giving  away  the  bride.  She  was  understood  to  have 
property,  and  lie  soon  rented  a  large  house,  and  they  launched 
out  into  a  very  extravagant  style  of  living.  Mrs.  Belknap  has 
been  one  of  the  handsomest  and  most  elegantly  dressed  ladies 
in  Washington,  and  received  many  of  her  dresses  from  Worth, 
the  Paris  milliner. 

It  is  probable  that  the  extravagant  living  and  the  "Paris 
milliner"  are  in  a  great  degree  responsible  for  the  awful  fall 
which  is  best  given  in  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Caleb  P.  Marsh 
before  the  Congressional  Committee,  appointed  to  examine  into 
this  corruption. 

"  In  the  summer  of  1870  myself  and  wife  spent  some  weeks  at 
Long  Branch,  and  on  our  return  to  New  York,  Mrs.  Belknap 
[the  Secretary's  second  wife,  who  died  in  the  following  Decern.- 


396  OUR  NATIONAL  DISGRACE. 

ber]  and  Mrs.  Bowers  [the  present  Mrs.  Belknap,  wlio  is  a  sis- 
ter of  the  second  Mrs.  Belknap] ,  by  our  invitation,  came  for  a 
visit  to  our  house.  Mrs.  Belknap  was  ill  during  this  visit,  some 
three  or  four  weeks,  and,  I  suppose  in  consequence  of  our  kind- 
ness to  her,  she  felt  under  some  obligation,  for  she  asked  me, 
one  day,  in  the  course  of  a  conversation,  why  I  did  not  apply 
for  a  post-tradership  on  the  frontier.  I  asked  what  they  were, 
and  was  told  that  they  were  many  of  them  very  lucrative 
offices,  in  the  gilt  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  that,  if  I  wanted 
one,  she  would  ask  the  Secretary  for  me.  Upon  my  replying 
that  I  thought  such  offices  belonged  to  disabled  soldiers,  and 
besides  that  I  was  without  political  influence,  she  answered 
that  politicians  got  such  places,  etc.,  etc.  I  do  not  remember 
saying  that,  if  I  had  a  valuable  post  of  that  kind,  I  would  re- 
member her.  But  I  do  remember  her  saying  something  like 
this :  '  If  I  can  prevail  upon  the  Secretary  of  War  to  award 
you  a  post,  you  must  be  careful  to  say  nothing  to  him  about 
presents,  for  a  man  once  offered  him  $10,000  for  a  tradership 
of  this  kind,  and  he  told  him  that,  if  he  did  not  leave  the  office, 
he  would  kick  him  down  stairs.*  Bemembering,  as  I  do,  this 
story,  I  presume  the  antecedent  statement  to  be  correct. 

"  Mrs.  Belknap  and  Mrs.  Bowers  returned  to  Washington,  and, 
a  few  weeks  thereafter,  Mrs.  Belknap  sent  me  word  to  come 
over.  I  did  so.  She  then  told  me  that  the  post-tradership  at 
Fort  Sill  was  vacant,  that  it  was  a  valuable  post,  as  she  under- 
stood, and  that  she  had  either  asked  for  it  for  me,  or  had  pre- 
vailed upon  the  Secretary  of  War  to  agree  to  give  it  to  me;  at 
all  events,  I  called  upon  the  Secretary  of  War,  and,  as  near 
as  I  can  remember,  made  application  for  this  post  on  a  regular 
printed  form.  The  Secretary  said  he  would  appoint  me,  if  I 
could  bring  proper  recommendatory  letters,  and  this  I  said  I 
could  do.  Either  Mrs.  Belknap  or  the  Secretary  told  me  that 
the  present  trader  at  the  post,  John  S.  Evans,  was  an  applicant 
for  re-appointment,  and  that  I  had  better  see  him,  he  being  in 
the  city,  as  it  would  not  be  fair  to  turn  him  out  of  office  with- 
out some  notice,  as  he  would  lose  largely  on  his  buildings,  mer- 


TESTIMONY  OP  EVANS.  897 

chandise,  etc.,  if  the  office  was  taken  from  him,  and  that  it 
would  be  proper  and  just  for  me  to  make  some  arrangement 
with  him  for  their  purchase,  if  I  wished  to  run  the  post  myself. 
I  saw  Evans,  and  found  him  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  losing 
the  place.  I  remember  that  he  said  that  a  firm  of  Western 
post-traders,  who  claimed  a  good  deal  of  influence  with  the 
Secretary  of  War,  had  promised  to  have  him  appointed,  but  he 
found  on  coming  to  Washington  this  firm  to  be  entirely  with- 
out influence." 

"  Mr.  Evans  first  proposed  a  partnership,  which  I  declined, 
and  then  a  bonus  of  a  certain  portion  of  the  profits,  if  I  would 
allow  him  to  hold  the  position  and  continue  the  business.  We 
finally  agreed  upon  115,000  per  year.  Mr.  Evans  and  myself 
went  to  New  York  together,  where  the  contract  was  made  and 
executed  which  is  herewith  submitted.  During  our  trip  over, 
however,  Mr.  Evans  saw  something  in  the  Army  and  Navy 
Journal,  which  led  him  to  think  that  some  of  the  troops  were 
to  be  removed  from  the  post,  and  that  he  had  offered  too  large 
a  sum,  and  before  the  contract  was  drawn,  it  was  reduced  by 
agreement  to  $12,000,  the  same  being  payable  quarterly  in  ad- 
vance. When  the  first  remittance  came  to  me,  say  probably 
in  November,  1870,  I  sent  one-half  thereof  to  Mrs.  Belknap, 
cither,  I  presume,  by  certificate  of  deposit  or  bank  notes  by 
express.  Being  in  Washington  at  a  funeral  (the  funeral  of 
Mrs.  Belknap)  some  weeks  after  this,  I  had  a  conversation 
with  Mrs.  Bowers  to  the  following  purport,  as  far  as  I  can 
now  remember,  but  must  say  that  just  here  my  memory  is  ex- 
ceedingly indistinct,  and  I  judge  in  part  perhaps  from  what  fol- 
lowed, as  to  the  details  of  the  conversation :  I  went  up-stairs 
in  the  nursery  with  Mrs.  Bowers  to  see  the  baby;  I  said  to  her, 
^  This  child  will  have  money  coming  to  it  before  a  great  while.' 
She  said, '  Yes.  The  mother  gave  the  child  to  me,  and  told 
me  that  the  money  coming  from  you  I  must  take  and  keep  for 
it.'  I  said,  "  All  right,'  and  it  seems  to  me  I  said  that  per- 
haps the  father  ought  to  be  consulted.  I  say  it  seems  so,  and 
yet  I  can  give  no  reason  for  it,  for,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  father 


898  OUR  NATIONAL  DISGRACE. 

knew  nothing  of  any  money  transactions  between  the  mother 
and  myself.  I  have  a  faint  recollection  of  a  remark  of  Mrs. 
Bowers  that,  if  I  sent  th^  money  to  the  father,  then  it  belonged 
to  her,  and  that  she  would  get  it  any  way.  I  certainly  had 
some  understanding  then  or  subsequently,  with  her  or  him,  for, 
when  the  next  payment  came  due  and  was  paid,  I  sent  the  one- 
half  thereof  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  have  continued  sub- 
stantially from  that  day  forward  to  the  present  time  to  do  the 
same. 

"About,  I  should  say,  a  year  and  a  half  or  two  years  after  the 
commencement  of  these  payments,  I  reduced  the  amount  to 
$6,000  per  annum.  The  reason  of  this  reduction  was,  partly 
because  of  the  combined  complaints  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Evans 
and  his  partner,  and  partly,  as  far  as  I  now  remember,  in  con- 
sequence of  an  article  in  the  newspapers,  about  the  time,  re- 
flecting on  the  injustice  done  to  soldiers  at  this  fort,  caused  by 
the  exorbitant  charges  made  necessary  on  the  part  of  the 
trader  by  reason  of  the  payment  of  this  bonus. 

"  The  money  was  sent  according  to  the  instructions  of  the 
Secretary  of  War,  sometimes  in  bank  notes  by  Adams'  express ; 
I  think  on  one  or  two  occasions  by  certificates  of  deposits  on 
the  National  Bank  of  America  in  New  York.  Sometimes  I 
have  paid  in  New  York  in  person.  Except  the  first  payment 
in  the  fall  of  1870,  and  the  last  in  December,  1872,  all  were 
made  to  the  Secretary  in  the  modes  I  have  stated,  unless  per- 
haps on  one  or  two  occasions,  at  his  instance,  I  bought  a  gov- 
ernment bond  with  the  moneys  in  my  hand  arising  from  the 
contract  with  Evans,  which  I  either  sent  or  handed  to  him. 

"  The  first  payment  to  me  by  Mr.  Evans  was  made  in  the  fall 
of  1870,  at  the  rate  of  $12,000  a  year.  He  paid  at  that  rate 
about  a  year  and  a  half  or  two  years,  and  since  then  at  the 
rate  of  16,000  a  year.  It  would  aggregate  about  $40,000,  one- 
half  of  which  I  have  disposed  of  as  above  stated.'* 

"  Usually  when  I  sent  money  by  express  I  would  send  Mr. 
Belknap  the  receipt  of  the  company,  which  he  would  either 
return  marked  "0.  K.,"  or  otherwise  acknowledge  the  receipt 


ADDITIONAL   FACTS.  399 

of  the  same.  Sometimes  I  paid  to  him  in  person  in  New  York, 
when  no  receipt  was  necessary.  I  have  not  preserved  any 
receipts  or  letters.  When  sent  by  express,  I  always  deposited 
the  money  personally,  and  took  a  receipt  for  it." 

There  are  some  facts  in  the  Belknap  business  not  developed 
even  in  this  testimony.  Prior  to  the  present  peculiarly  "  cen- 
tralized" national  administration,  the  wants  of  the  officers  and 
soldiers  of  the  army  on  the  frontier  were  supplied  by  "  sutlers," 
who  were  chosen  by  the  officers  at  each  station,  and  the  prices 
of  their  commodities  controlled  by  well-defined  regulations. 
The  buyers  had  the  power  of  preventing  imposition  and  extor- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  seller.  But  very  soon  after  the  Presi- 
dent's discovery  of  his  late  war  minister,  an  act  was  passed  by 
Congress,  under  administration  influence,  abolishing  the  old 
and  quite  satisfactory  sutler  system,  and  substituting  these 
"  post-traders,"  to  be  appointed  and  removed  at  the  pleasure  of 
the  Secretary  of  War  solely.  The  management  of  these  trad- 
ing posts  has  been  but  one  of  the  many  arbitrary  acts  which 
have  characterized  the  last  administration  of  the  war  office, 
and  caused  general  comment  and  open  criticism  in  army  cir- 
cles on  the  frontier,  where  it  is  a  serious  offense  to  speak  dis- 
respectfully of  the  powers  that  be  at  Washington.  For  several 
years  these  positions  as  post-trader  have  been  known  to  have 
a  fixed  market  value,  and  the  amount  of  the  bonus  paid  annu- 
ally by  the  actual  traders  at  each  of  the  more  important  sta- 
tions to  the  nominal  incumbents,  friends  of  the  Secretary  of 
War,  has  been  an  open  secret  on  the  frontier.  It  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  this  Fort  Sill  tradership,  for  which  $40,000 
has  been  paid  during  the  last  five  or  six  years,  is  but  one  of  a 
number.  How  about  the  others  ?  The  newspapers  have  already 
had  a  good  deal  to  say  about  one  in  the  Northwest  held  by  a 
Mr.  Orville  Grant. 

The  case  of  the  Fort  Sill  trader,  Mr.  J.  S.  Evans,  thus  made 
prominent,  is  an  excellent  one  to  illustrate  the  wliole  system 
and  its  bearings.  Fort  Sill  was  first  estabUshed  in  the  south- 
west part  of  the  Indian  Territory  in  the  winter  of  1868-9.     It 


400  OUR   NATIONAL   DISGRACE. 

soon  became  one  of  the  largest  and  most  important  of  the 
army  stations.  Mr.  Evans  of  Kentucky,  an  experienced  and 
fair-dealing  merchant  and  a  gentleman, — far  above  the  typical 
army  sutler, — opened  the  first  store  there  upon  the  authority 
of  the  troops.  When  the  change  was  made,  he  became  trader 
on  the  recommendation  of  the  officers  of  the  post,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  erect  buildings  and  lay  in  a  stock  of  general  merchan- 
dise. This  required  a  large  capital,  as  the  nearest  railroad 
was  then  the  Kansas  Pacific,  and  much  of  his  building  mate- 
rial, as  well  as  all  his  merchandise,  had  to  be  hauled  in  wagons 
for  hundreds  of  miles  through  a  country  without  roads.  In 
most  classes  of  goods  the  transportation  costs  more  than  the 
merchandise  itself.  Had  the  Secretary  appointed  liis  friend 
Marsh  to  the  original  vacancy  in  the  Fort  Sill  tradership,  it 
would  not  have  effected  the  desired  object ;  the  appointee 
would  have  been  obliged  to  command  large  capital,  and  then, 
conducting  the  business  in  person  or  by  deputy,  be  contented 
with  fair  profits.  So  Mr.  Evans  was  permitted  to  cstablisli 
himself  with  a  large  and  valuable  stock,  investing  his  whole 
fortune,  get  the  business  well  established,  and  then,  although 
giving  full  satisfaction  to  those  for  whose  accommodation,  the- 
oretically, the  place  is  provided,  he  was  unexpectedly  notified 
of  the  appointment  of  a  successor.  To  have  quietly  stepped 
aside  would  have  ruined  Mr.  Evans ;  he  could  not  have  re- 
moved his  goods  to  the  nearest  settlement  at  less  than  their 
cost.  He  was  at  the  mercy  of  Belknap's  appointee,  and  the 
latter  well  knew  it. 

Mr.  Evans  could  do  nothing  but  comply  with  the  terms  dic- 
tated by  Mr.  Marsh.  And  so  he  returned  to  his  frontier  store 
under  obligations  to  add  to  the  selling  price  of  his  goods  one 
thousand  dollars  a  month,  to  be  paid  in  advance  to  the  figure- 
head at  New  York.  Now  it  is  a  sad  fact  that  these  post- traders 
make  their  profits  on  the  sales  to  the  enlisted  men  of  the  army 
rather  than  on  sales  to  the  officers.  The  latter  have  various 
other  means  of  procuring  supplies,  and  the  traders  favor  tliem 
also.     Practically,  therefore,  this  bonus  had  to  be  taken  from 


ADDITIONAL  FACTS.  401 

the  pockets  of  the  soldiers  of  the  seven  companies  at  Fort  Sill. 
Those  troops  then  consisted  of  colored  men  of  the  10th  regi- 
ment of  cavalry,  about  600  in  number.  Each  of  these  poor 
fellows,  many  of  them  freedmen  earning  their  first  wages,  had 
to  contribute  from  his  monthly  pay  of  thirteen  dollars,  about 
two  dollars  toward  this  bonus  fund.  In  other  words,  during 
the  last  five  years,  the  enlisted  men  in  the  army  of  the  United 
States  serving  at  this  post  of  Fort  Sill  have  had  extorted  from 
them,  with  the  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 
the  sum  oi  forty  thousand  dollars^  half  of  which  has  helped 
toward  the  brilliant  social  display  of  that  Secretary  at  Wash- 
ington, while  the  other  half  has  remained  with  the  friend  in 
New  York  as  hush-money.  At  how  many  other  places  the 
same  thing  has  been  done,  remains  to  be  seen. 

The  facts  of  the  case  cited,  now  first  made  public,  have  been 
well  enough  understood  all  along  out  at  Fort  Sill.  Mr.  Evans 
was  obliged  to  tell  his  friends  of  the  state  of  affairs  to  justify 
his  exorbitant  prices.  The  former  commander  of  a  company 
of  the  colored  troops  at  that  station,  who  were  thus  mercilessly 
bled  to  pay  those  bills  of  the  Paris  dress-maker,  visited  Fort 
Sill  in  the  summer  of  1872,  and,  finding  that  appeals  througli 
the  military  channels  had  been  fruitless,  he  reported  the  facts 
fully  to  Senator  Sumner,  in  behalf  of  the  freedmcn-soldiers. 
A  similar  letter  was  written  at  the  same  time  to  Hon.  F.  W. 
Bird.  But,  as  the  Republican  aptly  remarks,  to-day,  although 
the  military  ring  in  1871-2  was  too  strong  to  be  broken  by 
Senators  Sumner  and  Schurz,  its  time  had  to  come.  Four 
years  have  brought  changes,  indeed.  Two  departmental  heads, 
that  withstood  assaults  far  more  formidable  then,  now  fall  be- 
fore "  a  Mr.  Marsh." 

After  Gen.  Belknap  saw  that  his  friend  Marsh  was  bound  to 
tell  the  full  truth,  he  called  on  the  President,  and  in  great 
excitement  offered  his  resignation,  which  the  President  un- 
wisely accepted.  This  unwise  step  may  save  Belknap  from 
punishment  for  his  crime,  as  Congress  has  not  yet  been  able 
to  convince  itself  that  it  has  a  right  to  impeach  a  man  after  he 


402  OUR  NATIONAL  DISGRACE. 

ceases  to  hold  office.  Whatever  flimsy  excuse  may  save  Bel- 
knap from  the  full  punishment  for  his  crimes,  the  fact  that  he 
has  so  publicly  branded  himself  as  thoroughly  wanting  in  hon- 
esty and  honor,  and  that  he  stands  disgraced  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world,  is  the  worst  of  punishments.  ^ 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION  OP  1876. 

The  Convention  which  was  to  nominate  candidates  for  the 
Republican  party  for  the  office  of  President  and  Vice-President, 
met  in  Cincinnati  on  the  14th  day  of  June,  1876. 

The  Convention  was  called  to  order  at  noon  by  Ex-Governor 
Morgan  of  New  York,  and  made  a  brief  statement  of  the  du- 
ties of  the  Convention.  After  this  speech  the  temporary  organ- 
ization was  at  once  completed  by  the  choice  of  Theodore  M. 
Pomeroy,  Chairman. 

The  various  committees  were  then  appointed.  The  Com- 
mittee on  Organization  presented  Honorable  Edward  McPher- 
son  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  Chairman  of  *' The  Committee  on  Resolutions"  was 
Honorable  Joseph  R.  Hawlcy  of  Connecticut.  The  platform 
which  was  adopted  as  a  sign-board  in  the  coming  political  cam- 
paign was  mostly  his  work.  After  due  deliberation  General 
Hawley  on  the  second  day  presented  the  following  platform ; 

THE    PLATFORM. 

When,  in  the  economy  of  Providence,  this  land  was  to  be  purged  of 
human  slavery,  and  when  the  strength  of  the  Govenrment  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  for  the  people,  was  to  be  demonstrated,  the  Republican 
party  came  into  power.  Its  deeds  have  passed  into  history,  and  we  look 
back  to  them  with  pride,  incited  by  their  memories  and  high  aims  for  the 
good  of  our  country  and  mankind ;  and,  looking  to  the  future  with  an- 
faltering  courage,  hope,  and  purpose,  we,  the  representatives  of  the  party, 
in  National  Convention  assembled,  make  the  following  declaration  of 
principles. 


404  REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION   OF   1876. 

I.  The  United  States  of  America  is  a  nation,  not  a  league.  By  the  com- 
bined workings  of  tlie  National  and  State  Governments,  under  their  re- 
spective constitutions,  the  rights  of  every  citizen  are  secured  at  home  and 
protected  abroad,  and  the  common  welfare  promoted. 

II.  The  Republican  party  has  preserved  those  Governments  to  the  hun- 
dreth  aniversary  of  the  Nation's  birth,  and  they  are  now  embodiments  of 
the  great  truths  spoken  at  its  cradle — that  all  men  are  created  equal ; 
that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights, 
among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness ;  that  for  the 
attainment  of  these  ends  governments  have  been  instituted  among  men, 
deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  Until  those 
truths  are  cheerfully  obeyed,  and,  if  needed,  vigorously  enforced,  the  work 
of  the  Republican  party  is  unfinished. 

III.  The  permanent  pacification  of  the  Southern  section  of  the  Union, 
and  the  complete  protection  of  all  its  citizens  in  the  free  enjoyment  of  all 
their  rights,  are  duties  to  which  the  Republican  party  are  sacredly  pledged. 
[Applause.]  The  power  to  provide  for  the  enforcement  of  the  principles 
embodied  in  the  recent  constitutional  amendments  is  vested  by  those 
amendments  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  and  v.e  declare  it  to  be 
the  solemn  obligation  of  the  legislative  and  executive  departments  of  the 
Government  to  put  into  immediate  and  vigorous  exercise  all  their  consti- 
tutional powers  for  removing  any  just  causes  of  discontent  on  the  part  of 
any  class,  and  securing  to  every  American  citizen  complete  liberty  and  ex- 
act equality  in  the  exercise  of  all  civil,  political,  and  public  rights.  [Ap- 
lause.]  To  this  end  we  imperatively  demand  a  Congress  and  Chief  Exec- 
utive whose  courage  and  fidelity  to  these  duties  shall  not  falter  until  these 
results  are  placed  beyond  dispute  or  recall.     [Applause.] 

IV.  In  the  first  act  of  Congress  signed  by  President  Grant,  the  Na- 
tional Government  assumed  to  remove  any  doubts  of  its  purpose  to  dis- 
charge all  just  obligations  to  public  creditors,  and  solemnly  pledged  its 
faith  to  make  provision  at  the  earliest  practicable  period  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  United  States  notes  in  coin.  [Applause.]  Commercial  pros- 
perity, public  merits,  and  National  credit  demand  that  this  promise  be 
fulfilled  by  a  continuous  and  steady  progress  to  specie  payment.  [Loud 
and  long-continued  applause.] 

V.  Under  the  Constitution  the  President  and  heads  of  Departments 
are  to  make  nominations  for  ofliice ;  the  Senate  is  to  advise  and  consent 
to  appointments,  and  the  House  of  Representatives  is  to  a,ccuse  and  pros- 
ecute faithless  officers.  The  best  interests  of  the  public  service  demand 
that  these  distinctions  be  respected;  that  Senators  and  Representatives 
who  may  be  judges  and  accusers  should  not  dictate  appointments  to 
office.  The  ilivariable  rule  for  appointments  should  have  reference  to 
the  honesty,  fidelity,  and  capacity  of  appointees,  giving  to  the  party  in 


REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION  OF  1876.  405 

power  those  places  where  harmony  and  vigor  of  administration  require 
its  policy  to  be  represented,  but  permitting  all  others  to  be  filled  by 
persons  selected  with  sole  reference  to  efficiency  of  the  public  service, 
and  the  right  of  citizens  to  share  in  the  honor  of  rendering  faithful 
service  to  their  country. 

VI.  We  rejoice  in  the  quickened  conscience  of  the  people  concerning 
political  affairs.  We  will  hold  all  public  officers  to  a  rigid  responsibility, 
and  engage  that  the  prosecution  and  punishment  of  all  who  betray  official 
trusts  shall  be  speedy,  thorough,  and  unsparing.     [Cheers.] 

VII.  Tiie  public  school  system  of  the  several  States  is  the  bulwark  of 
the  American  Republic,  and  with  a  view  to  its  security  and  permanence 
we  recommend  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
forbidding  the  application  of  any  public  funds  or  property  for  the  bene- 
fit of  any  school  or  institution  under  sectarian  control.  [Great  cheering, 
continuing  several  minutes.] 

VIII.  The  revenue  necessary  for  current  expenditures  and  the  obliga- 
tions of  the  public  debt  must  be  largely  derived  from  duties  upon  impor- 
tations, which  so  far  as  possible  should  be  so  adjusted  as  fo  promote  the 
interests  of  American  labor  and  advance  the  prosperity  of  the  whole 
country.     [Cheei-s.] 

IX.  We  re-affirm  our  opposition  to  further  grants  of  the  public  lands  to 
corporations  and  monopolies,  and  demand  that  the  national  domain  be 
devoted  to  free  homes  for  the  people. 

X.  It  is  the  imperative  duty  of  the  Government  to  so  modify  existing 
treaties  with  European  governments  that  the  same  protection  shall  bo 
afforded  to  adopted  American  citizens  that  is  given  to  native-born,  and 
all  necessary  laws  be  passed  to  protect  immigrants  in  the  absence  of 
power  in  the  State  for  that  purpose. 

XI.  It  is  the  immediate  duty  of  Congress  to  fully  investigate  the  effect 
of  the  immigration  and  importation  of  Mongolians  on  the  moral  and 
material  interests  of  the  country.     [Applause.] 

XII.  The  Republican  party  recognize  with  approval  the  substantial 
advance  recently  made  toward  the  establishment  of  equal  rights  for 
women  by  the  many  important  amendments  effected  by  Republican  Leg- 
islatures in  the  laws  which  concern  the  personal  and  property  relations 
of  wives,  mothers,  and  widows,  and  by  the  appointment  and  election  of 
women  to  the  superintejidence  of  education,  charities,  and  other  public 
trusts.  The  honest  demands  of  this  class  of  citizens  for  additional  rights 
and  privileges  and  immunities  should  be  treated  with  respectful  consid- 
eration.    [Applause.] 

XIII.  The  Constitution  confers  upon  Congress  sovereign  power  over 
the  Territories  of  the  United  States  for  their  government,  and  in  the 
exercise  of  this  power  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit 


406  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION  OF  1876. 

and  extirpate  in  the  Territories  that  relic  of  barbarism,  polygamy;  and 
we  demand  such  legislation  as  will  secure  this  end  and  the  supremacy  of 
American  institutions  in  all  the  Territories.     [Applause.] 

XIV.  The  pledges  which  our  nation  has  given  to  our  soldiers  and 
sailors  must  be  fulfilled.  The  grateful  people  will  always  regard  those 
who  perilled  their  lives  for  the  country's  preservation  in  the  kindest 
remembrancc.- 

XV.  We  sincerely  deprecate  all  sectional  feeling  and  tendencies.  We 
therefore  note  with  deep  solicitude  that  the  Democratic  party  counts  as 
its  chief  hope  of  success  upon  the  electoral  vote  of  a  united  South, 
secured  through  the  efforts  of  those  who  were  recently  arrayed  against 
the  nation,  and  we  invoke  the  earnest  attention  of  the  country  to  the 
grave  truth  that  a  success  thus  achieved  would  re-open  sectional  strife  and 
imperil  the  national  honor  and  human  rights. 

XVI.  We  charge  the  Democratic  party  as  being  the  same  in  character 
and  spirit  as  when  it  sympathized  with  treason,  and  with  making  its  con- 
trol of  the  House  of  Representatives  the  triumph  and  opportunity  of  the 
nation's  recent  foes;  with  re-asserting  and  applauding  in  the  National 
Capitol  the  sentiments  of  unrepentant  rebellion ;  with  sending  Union  sol- 
diers to  the  rear ;  with  deliberately  proposing  to  repudiate  the  plighted 
faith  of  the  Government ;  with  being  equally  false  and  imbecile  upon  the 
overshadowing  financial  question ;  with  thwarting  the  ends  of  justice  by 
its  partisan  mismanagement  and  obstruction  of  investigation ;  with  prov- 
ing itself,  through  the  period  of  its  ascendency  in  the  Lower  House  of 
Congress,  utterly  incompetent  to  administer  the  Government.  We  warn 
the  country  against  trusting  a  party  thus  alike  unworthy,  recreant,  and 
incapable.     [Cheers.] 

XVII.  The  National  Administration  merits  commendation  for  its  hon- 
orable work  in  the  management  of  domestic  and  foreign  affairs,  and 
President  Grant  deserves  the  continued  and  hearty  gratitude  of  the 
American  people  for  his  patriotism  and  his  immense  services  in  war  and 
in  peace.     [Cheers.] 

After  tlie  reading  and  accepting  of  the  Platform,  balloting 
commenced. 

The  candidates  proposed  were :  Hon.  Marshall  Jewell,  of 
Connecticut ;  Hon.  Oliver  P.  JMorton,  of  Indiana ;  Hon.  Ben- 
jamin H.  Bristow,  of  Kentucky ;  Ex-Speaker  James  G.  Blaine, 
of  Maine ;  Hon.  Roscoe  Conkling,  of  New  York ;  Gov.  R.  B. 
Hayes,  of  Ohio ;  Gov.  Hartranft,  of  Pennsylvania. 

These  proceedings  occupied  the  second  day  of  the  Conven- 


REPUBLICAN   CONVENTION   OP  1876.  407 

tion,  and  early  on  tlie  third  the  balloting  commenced.  Seven 
ballots  were  cast.  We  give  these  in  full,  as  they  are  valuable 
for  reference. 

FIRST  BALLOT. 
Whole  number  of  votes  cast,  .  -  -  _        759 

Necessary  to  a  choice,  ------        380 

Blaine,  -------  291 

Morton,  -------  125 

Bristow,         -------  113 

Conkling,       -  -i  -  -  -  -       96 

Hayes,  --------      65 

Hartranft,      -------      58 

Jewell,  •«•  '  -  -  -  -  -      11 

SECOND   BALLOT. 

Applying  the  rule  adopted  by  the  Convention  to  the  second 
ballot  it  stands  as  follows ; 

Whole  vote, -  -        747 

Necessary  for  a  choice,  -            «            -            -  -        374 

Blaine,  ---..-,.           t.            -  -    298 

Bristow,  -           -           -           "*            -            -  -    114 

Morton,  -           '-           ^           -•           -^            -  -    m 

Conkling,  -          .«           -           »           ...           -*  -      93 

Hayes,  -«^-»-»*  -64 

Hartranft,  -           -           -           -            - .         -^  -      63 

Wheeler,  -----^-3 

Washburne,  -           -           --*-••-  _i 

THIRD   BALLOT. 

There  being  no  choice  a  third  ballot  was  ordered.     The 
clerk  called  the  roll  of  States.     The  third  ballot  resulted  as 
follows : 

Whole  vote,      -------        755 

Necessary  to  a  choice,  -  -  -  -  -        878 

Blaine,  -  -  ^  -.  -  -  -    293 

Bristow,         *  -  -  -  -  -  -     121 

Morton,  -  -  -  -  -  -  -     113 

Conkling,      .-----.90 

Hartranft,      -  -  -  --  -  -68 

Hayes,  ----..-67 

Wheeler,        -  *  -.  -  -  -.  -        2 

Washburne,  -------1 


408 


REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION  OP  1876. 


FOURTH  BALLOT. 

There  being  no  choice  the  fourth  ballot  was  then  taken  as 
follows : 


Whole  vote, 

- 

, 

- 

759 

Necessary  for  a  choice 

) 

. 

378 

Blaine, 

- 

. 

292 

Bristow, 

- 

. 

126 

Morton, 

. 

. 

108 

Conkling, 

- 

. 

84 

Hartranft, 

- 

. 

71 

Hayes, 

- 

. 

68 

Washburne, 

- 

- 

8 

Wheeler, 

~ 

FIFTH  BALLOT. 

2 

The  Chair  (Lieut. -Gov.  Woodford)  announced  the  result  of 
the  ballot  as  follows : 


Whole  vote. 

- 

- 

- 

m                             m 

- 

. 

753 

Necessary  for  s 

I  choice 

) 

- 

.- 

• 

377 

Blaine, 

- 

- 

■- 

- 

287 

Bristow, 

- 

•                             • 

- 

114 

Hayes, 

- 

- 

- 

102 

Morton, 

- 

^ 

- 

95 

Conkling, 
Hartranft, 

- 

- 

Zi 

- 

82 
69 

Washburne, 

- 

- 

- 

3 

Wheeler, 

SlXTk 

BALLOT. 

2 

Whole  vote, 

_ 

. 

. 

. 

_ 

754 

Necessary  for  a  choice 

» 

- 

378 

Blaine, 

- 

- 

- 

308 

Hayes, 

- 

- 

- 

113 

Bristow, 

- 

- 

- 

111 

Morton, 

- 

- 

- 

85 

Conkling, 

_ 

- 

. 

81 

Hartranft, 

- 

- 

- 

50 

Washburne, 

- 

- 

- 

4 

Wheeler, 

- 

- 

- 

- 

2 

REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION  OF  1876.  409 

SEVENTH  BALLOT. 

The  Chair  amiounced  the  vote  as  follows : 

Whole  vote, 756 

Necessary  for  a  choice,  -  -  .  _  _        373 

Hayes,  -  -  -  -  -  -  -    384 

Blame,  -  -  -  -  -  -  -     351 

Bristow,         -  -  -  -  -  -  -21 

After  Gov.  Hayes  had  been  nominated,  the  convention 
quickly  proceeded  to  nominate  a  candidate -for  vice-president. 
Mr.  Stewart  L.  Woodford  and  Mr.  William  A.  Wheeler  of  New 
York ;  Gen.  Joseph  R.  Hawley  of  Connecticut,  were  nomin- 
ated, but  before  the  first  ballot  was  finished  the  balloting  was 
suspended,  and  William  A.  Wheeler  nominated  by  acclamation. 

The  Eepublican  Convention  of  1876  having  put  forth  as  its 
centennial  ticket, 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES,  op  Ohio  ; 

FOR    VICE-PRESIDENT, 

WILLIAM  A.  WHEELER,  op  New  York, 


Adjourned. 


18 


CHAPTER   XXIY. 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES,  REPUBLICAN  CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT. 

Rutherford  B.  Hayes  was  born  at  Delaware,  Ohio,  October 
4,  1822.  His  birth,  as  far  as  one  can  see,  was  in  no  way- 
responsible  for  his  rapid  rise  to  the  summit  of  American  fame. 
His  parents  were  respectable,  thrifty  people,  born  in  New 
England,  who  migrated  to  the  West  carrying  wdth  them  that 
industry  which  has  characterized  New  England  people  and 
which  has  helped  so  much  to  develop  the  West. 

Like  all  New  England  people,  the  parents  of  young  Hayes 
were  anxious  to  give  their  children  a  thorough  education. 
This  he  received  at  the  schools  of  his  native  place  and  at 
Kenyon  College,  finishing  his  professional  studies  at  the  cele- 
brated law  school  at  Cambridge,  Mass.  From  his  early  youth 
he  showed  marks  of  good  abilities,  and  in  his  college  course, 
was  the  first  scholar  in  his  class — a  result  more  of  industry 
than  genius.  During  his  youth,  as  in  his  manhood,  he  has 
always  been  characterized  by  genial  manners  and  a  hearty 
good  fellowship,  which  have  always  won  for  him  the  love  of 
all  of  those  with  whom  he  has  come  in  contact.  These  char- 
acteristics were  the  result  of  a  hearty  good  will  towards  his 
fellows,  and  an  earnest  interest  in  all  matters,  rather  than  any 
zeal  for  the  interests  of  others  and  the  success  of  public  or 
private  matters,  in  order  that  reputation  might  accrue  to  him- 
self. While  a  youth  he  never  sought  any  preeminence,  but 
often  it  was  accorded  to  him  as  the  natural  results  of  his 
industry,  intelligence,  and  practical  common  sense. 


RUTHERFORD   B.    HAYES.  411 

From  tlie  Cambridge  Law  School,  he  entered  the  law  office 
of  Thomas  Sparrow,  of  Cincinnati,  and  completed  his  legal 
studies.  After  scarcely  a  year  at  this,  he  opened  an  office  for 
himself,  and  began  to  build  up  his  own  business,  and  a  career 
for  himself,  little  thinking  at  that  time  that  he  would  ever  be 
a  candidate  for  the  highest  office  within  the  gift  of  the  Ameri- 
can people.  Bis  genial  manners  and  fine  voice  at  once  com- 
mended him  in  his  profession,  and  he  soon  built  up  a  fine  legal 
practice.  In  1858,  his  reputation  had  become  so  good  that  he 
was  elected  city  solicitor. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  Hayes  entered  the  service  at 
once.  With  his  practical  nature  he  saw  at  once  the  nature 
of  the  contest,  and  the  need  of  every  able-bodied  man  in  the 
field.  He  was  appointed  Major  of  the  23d  Ohio  Infantry. 
This  was  one  of  the  first  regiments  in  the  field,  and  was  com- 
manded by  the  distinguished  leader.  Col.  William  S.  Rosecrans. 
Early  in  June,  1861,  the  regiment  was  mustered  into  service 
for  three  years,  but  before  it  started  for  the  seat  of  war,  its 
colonel  received  the  commission  as  brigadier-general  in  the 
regular  army. 

Late  in  July,  the  regiment  was  ordered  to  Clarksburg,  W. 
Va.,  and  had  its  first  active  service  in  hunting  down  the  guer- 
rillas that  infested  the  spurs  of  the  Kich  Mountain  range. 
Major  Hayes  served  temporarily  as  Judge-Advocate  on  Gen. 
Rosecrans'  staff,  and  in  November,  18G1,  received  his  commis- 
sion as  lieutenant-colonel.  In  April,  1862,  the  regiment,  under 
command  of  Licut.-Col.  Hayes,  left  its  winter  quarters  and 
moved  in  the  direction  of  Princeton.  After  two  weeks  of 
skirmishing  and  foraging,  the  force  was  attacked  by  four  regi- 
ments of  infantry  under  command  of  Gen.  Heath,  and  after 
making  a  determined  stand,  was  compelled  to  retire.  In  the 
heart  of  August,  orders  were  received  to  march  with  all  possi- 
ble dispatch  to  the  Great  Kanawha.  The  regiment  made  104 
miles  in  about  three  days,  embarked  on  transports  for  Parkers- 
burg,  and  took  the  cars  for  Washington,  where  it  joined  Gen. 
McClellan's  army. 


412  RUTHERFORD    B.    HAYES. 

Tlie  first  shots  at  South  Mountain  were  fired  by  Col.  Hayes* 
command.  The  regiment  was  ordered  to  ascend  the  mountain 
at  an  early  liour  by  an  unfrequented  road.  The  enemy  were 
posted  behind  stone  walls,  and  greatly  out-numbered  their 
assailants,  and  the  regiment  was  exposed  to  a  murderous  fire 
of  musketry  and  grape  at  short  range.  Out  of  the  350  men 
who  went  into  action,  100  soon  lay  dead  or  wounded  on  the 
field.  Lieut.-Col.  Hayes  was  badly  wounded,  his  arm  being 
broken,  and  the  command  devolved  upon  Major  Comly.  The 
commander,  however,  was  not  ready  for  ambulance  or  hospital ; 
there  was  still  a  good  deal  of  fight  in  him,  for  he  re-appeared 
on  the  field  undaunted,  with  his  wound  half  dressed,  and 
fought  until  he  was  so  weak  that  his  men  had  to  carry  him 
away.  After  the  battle  of  Antietam  the  regiment  was  ordered 
to  the  Kanawha  Yalley.  Lieut.-Colonel  Hayes  was  appointed 
to  the  colonelcy  of  the  regiment,  and  in  December,  1862,  was 
placed  in  command  of  the  First  Brigade  of  the  Kanawha  divi- 
sion. During  the  campaign  of  1863,  his  division  was  exposed 
to  arduous  rather  tlian  dangerous  service,  but  in  1864  he  won 
his  promotion  by  his  gallantry  at  Winchester,  Fisher's  Hill, 
and  Cedar  Creek:  In  the  battle  of  Opequan,  Col.  Hayes' 
brigade,  after  advancing  across  several  open  fields,  gained  the 
crest  of  a  hill  and  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  enemy's  line.  Mov- 
ing forward  under  a  heavy  fire,  the  brigade  dashed  through  a 
fringe  of  underbrush  and  halted  on  the  edge  of  a  slough  40  or 
50  yards  wide  and  nearly  waist  deep.  When  he  saw  the  whole 
line  wavering.  Col.  Hayes  plunged  in  under  a  shower  of  bullets 
and  grape,  and  dragged  his  way  through.  He  was  the  first 
man  over.  The  infantry  floundered  through  the  morass,  and 
the  enemy  were  driven  back.  Col.  Hayes  exposed  himself 
recklessly,  and  was  half  the  time  in  advance  of  the  line.  At 
Winchester  his  horse  was  shot  under  him,  and  he  narrowly 
escaped  with  his  life.  As  he  lay  on  the  field  stunned  by  his 
fall,  and  wondering  why  the  troops  were  not  ordered  to  charge 
the  enemy's  line,  there  was  a  cloud  of  dust  on  the  Winchester 
turnpike,  and   Sheridan  rode  into  camp  on  his  magnificent 


RUTHERFORD    B.    HAYES.  413 

liorse  in  time  to  save  the  day.  During  this  terrible  campaign, 
Col.  Hayes  had  three  horses  shot  under  him  and  was  wounded 
four  times.  In  the  Spring  of  1865,  he  was  given  the  com- 
mand of  an  expedition  against  Lynchburg,  and  was  preparing 
to  cross  the  mountains  of  West  Virginia  when  the  war  was 
brought  to  a  close.  For  his  bravery  at  Fisher's  Hill  and  Cedar 
Creek  he  was  breveted  major-general. 

Throughout  the  war.  General  Hayes  not  only  showed  him- 
self to  be  an  able  general  and  a  brave  soldier,  but  what  has 
still  more  of  a  bearing  on  his  present  condition,  he  proved 
himself  a  thorough  patriot  and  a  commander  who  had  at  heart 
the  welfare  of  the  members  of  his  command.  His  courage 
was  shown  only  in  the  battle.  In  camp  he  was  quiet  and 
unobtrusive,  attending  to  the  duties  of  his  position  with  the 
same  assiduous  zeal  which  had  characterized  his  previous  life. 
Every  soldier  of  his  command  loved  him,  and  it  has  been 
remarked,  by  those  who  have  had  an  opportunity  of  knowing, 
that  in  his  canvass  for  the  governorship  of  Ohio,  he  met  his 
most  enthusiastic  support  from  his  old  soldiers,  who  knew  him 
best. 

We  have,  during  the  present  administration,  had  too  much 
of  the  spirit  which  animated  too  many  of  the  commanders  of 
the  army,  which  may  be  best  termed  selfish  zeal.  Their  own 
interests  were  first  considered,  the  interests  of  the  country 
afterwards,  if  at  all.  It  is  one  of  the  gratifying  hopes  in  this 
campaign  that  our  candidates  are  men  who  will  have  some 
regard  for  the  wishes  of  the  people  and  tliB  interests  of  the 
country. 

Before  Gen.  Hayes  left  the  army,  he  was  nominated  by  the 
Republicans  for  Congress.  He  was  urged  to  obtain  a  furlough 
and  take  the  stump  in  his  own  behalf.  To  the  letter  he  sent 
this  characteristic  reply  :  "  Thank  you.  I  have  other  business, 
now.  Any  man  who  would  leave  the  army  to  electioneer  for 
Congress,  ought  to  be  scalped.'*  He  was  elected  easily  to 
Congress.  His  career  there  is  briefly  described  by  a  corres- 
pondent of  the  New  York  Tribune,  in  the  following  words : 


414  RUTHERFORD   B.    HAYES. 

"  In  the  fall  of  1864,  Gen.  Hayes  was  elected  to  Congress 
from  Cincinnati  by  a  large  majority.  He  seldom  appeared  on 
the  floor  of  the  House,  not  making  any  elaborate  speeches, 
nor  taking  a  prominent  part  in  the  reconstruction  measures 
which  engrossed  the  attention  of  Congress.  He  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Committee  on  Private  Land  Claims,  and  was  Chair- 
man of  the  Committee  on  Library.  The  delegation  from  Ohio 
at  that  time,  was  a  very  strong  one,  including  Gen.  Schenck, ' 
John  A.  Bingham,  James  M.  Ashley,  Samuel  Shellabarger, 
and  Columbus  Delano,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  inex- 
perienced member  took  a  lower  seat  than  his  brilliant  col- 
leagues, and  was  content  to  be  a  listener.  Li  1866,  he  was 
reelected,  but  resigned  the  position  in  1867,  in  order  to  accept 
the  Republican  nomination  for  Governor." 

This  brief  resum^  would  be  very  incomplete  and  inadequate 
if  we  did  not  add  that  Gen.  Hayes  accomplished  a  great  deal 
of  silent,  effective  work.  He  at  first  was  considered  a  good 
party  man,  but  of  no  very  positive  characteristics  ;  but  it  was 
soon  discovered  that  whenever  a  conference  or  consultation 
was  held,  Hayes  was  called  in  ;  that  his  opinions  were  always 
given  quietly  and  briefly,  but  that  the  final  conclusion  always 
coincided  with  them.  This  has  always  been  a  characteristic  of 
his  life,  and  all  his  work  has  been  quiet  but  effective. 

The  Democratic  nominee  for  the  governorship  was  Judge 
Thurman,  and  the  contest  was  a  very  close  one,  as  Judge 
Thurman  is  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  popular  leaders  of 
his  party.  He  was  the  only  man  whom  many  western  dem- 
ocrats thought  able  to  beat  Hayes  in  the  coming  campaign, 
and  whom  they  consequently  desired  the  St.  Louis  Conven- 
tion to  nominate.  The  Republican  platform  that  year  had 
several  unpopular  planks,  and  the  Democratic  candidate  was 
an  exceedingly  strong  one,  but  Gen.  Hayes  entered  upon 
the  canvass  with  unwonted  vigor,  won  hosts  of  friends  by 
his  bearing  on  the  stump,  and  was  elected  by  a  majority  of 
nearly  3,000  votes.  In  1869  he  was  re-nominated,  his  opponent 
being  Mr.  Pendleton,  and  he  increased  his  lead  by  several 


RUTHERFORD   B.    HAYES.  415 

thousand  votes.  After  his  retirement  from  office  he  resumed 
tlie  practice  of  his  profession.  In  1872  he  was  a  candidate  for 
Congress,  but  was  defeated  by  Henry  B.  Banning,  a  Liberal 
Republican,  by  2,500  votes.  In  April,  1873,  he  was  nominated 
for  Assistant  Treasurer  at  Cincinnati,  but  the  Senate  adjourned 
without  confirming  the  appointment.  In  1875  he  was  nomi- 
nated for  Governor  in  the  face  of  his  letter  of  withdrawal  in 
favor  of  Judge  Taft.  The  canvass  which  followed  was  almost 
without  parallel  in  the  political  annals  of  Ohio.  After  mani- 
festing a  strong  disposition  to  screen  themselves  behind  the 
school  question  the  Republicans  assumed  the  offensive  on  the 
currency  question,  came  out  boldly  for  hard  money,  and  with 
the  aid  of  Carl  Schurz  won  the  day.  During  this  heated  can- 
vass Gov.  Hayes  was  constantly  on  the  stump,  and  the  great 
victory  for  hard  money  which  was  won  last  October  was  due 
in  largo  measure  to  the  zeal  and  fire  of  the  Republican  leader. 
Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  Gov.  Hayes  has  been  kept  constantly 
in  public  life  ever  since  he  first  entered  it,  except  while  he  was 
in  the  army.  As  soon  as  the  presidential  strife  began  to  fill 
the  air,  his  name  was  mentioned  as  a  candidate  by  the  Repub- 
licans of  Cincinnati,  and  endorsed  by  many  prominent  men, 
all  of  whom  have  re-echoed  tlie  testimony  of  Senator  Sherman, 
who  says :  '•  I  believe  the  nomination  of  Gov.  Hayes  would 
give  us  more  strength,  taking  the  whole  country  at  large,  than 
any  other  man.  He  is  better  known  in  Ohio  than  elsewhere  ; 
but  the  qualities  that  have  made  him  strong  in  Ohio  will,  as 
the  canvass  progresses,  make  him  stronger  in  every  State.  He 
was  a  good  soldier,  and  though  not  greatly  distinguished  as 
such,  ho  performed  his  full  duty,  and  I  noticed,  when  traveling 
with  him  in  Ohio,  the  soldiers  who  served  under  him  loved  and 
respected  him.  As  a  member  of  Congress  he  was  not  a  lead- 
ing debater  or  manager  in  party  tactics,  but  he  was  always 
sensible,  industrious,  and  true  to  his  convictions  and  the  prin- 
ciples and  tendencies  of  his  party,  and  commanded  the  sincere 
respect  of  his  colleagues.  As  a  Governor  thrice  elected  he 
has  shown  good  executive  abilities  and  gained  great  popularity, 


416  RUTHERFORD   B.    HAYES. 

not  only  with  Republicans,  but  with  our  adversaries.  On  the 
currency  question,  which  is  likely  to  enter  largely  into  the  can- 
vass, he  is  thoroughly  sound,  but  is  not  committed  to  any  par- 
ticular measure,  so  as  to  be  disabled  from  cooperating  with  any 
plan  that  may  promise  success.  On  the  main  questions,  pro- 
tection for  all,  equal  rights,  and  the  observance  of  the  public 
faith,  he  is  as  trustworthy  as  any  one  named.  He  is  fortu- 
nately free  from  the  personal  enmities  and  antagonisms  that 
would  weaken  some  of  his  competitors  ;  he  is  unblemished  in 
name,  character,  and  conduct,  and  he  is  a  native-born  citizen 
of  our  State.  I  have  thus,  as  you  requested,  given  you  my 
view  of  the  presidential  question,  taken  as  dispassionately  as 
if  I  was  examining  a  proposition  in  geometry,  and  the  result 
drawn  from  the  facts  not  too  strongly  stated  is  that  the  Repub- 
lican party  in  Ohio  ought,  in  their  State  Convention,  to  give 
Gov.  Hayes  a  united  delegation  instructed  to  support  him  in 
the  National  Convention.  Not  that  we  have  any  special  claim 
to  have  a  candidate  taken  from  Ohio,  but  that  in  Gov.  Hayes 
we  honestly  believe  the  Republican  party  in  the  United  States 
will  have  a  candidate  who  can  combine  greater  popular  strength 
and  greater  assurance  of  success  than  other  candidates,  and 
with  equal  ability  to  discharge  the  duties  of  President  of  the 
United  States  in  case  of  election." 

To  Senator  Sherman  is  due  the  honor  of  first  bringing  Gov. 
Hayes'  name  prommently  before  the  country  as  a  candidate. 

From  this  sketch  it  will  be  seen  that  the  candidate  of  the 
Republicans  has  a  record  to  which  he  can  appeal  with  much 
confidence  and  pride. 

In  personal  appearance  Gov.  Hayes  is  strong,  and  a  very 
large  man,  weighing  about  190  pounds.  He  has  a  family  of 
which  he  is  very  fond.  His  wife  is  a  truly  amiable  woman, 
and  of  great  intellectual  and  social  power.  If  her  husband 
should  be  so  fortunate  as  to  receive  the  honor  for  wliich  he  is 
nominated,  she  would  preside  at  the  White  House  with  eminent 
grace  and  good  sense. 

Gov.  Hayes'  letter  of  acceptance  will  complete  the  record 


RUTHERFORD   B.    HAYES.  417 

of  an  eventful  and  so  far  successful  life,  for  the  present.    What 
will  be  the  next  chapter  of  it,  the  fall  elections  alone  can  tell : 

Columbus,  O.,  July  8,  1876. 

Honorable  Edward  McPherson,  Honorable  William  A.  Howard,  Honor- 
able Joseph  H.  Rainey,  and  others,  Committee  of  the  Republican  National 
Convention : — 

Gentlemen :  In  reply  to  your  official  communication  of  June  17th,  by 
which  I  am  informed  of  my  nomination  for  the  office  of  President  of  the 
United  States  by  the  Republican  National  Convention  at  Cincinnati,  I 
accept  the  nomination  with  gratitude,  hoping  that,  under  Providence,  I 
shall  be  able,  if  elected,  to  execute  the  duties  of  the  high  office  as  a  trust 
for  the  benefit  of  all  the  people. 

I  do  not  deem  it  necessary  to  enter  upon  any  extended  examination  of 
the  declaration  of  principles  made  by  the  Convention.  The  resolutions 
are  in  accord  with  my  views,  and  I  heartily  concur  in  the  principles  they 
announce.  In  several  of  the  resolutions,  however,  questions  are  consid- 
ered which  are  of  such  importance  that  I  deem  it  proper  to  briefly  ex- 
press my  convictions  in  regard  to  them. 

The  fifth  resolution  adopted  by  the  Convention  is  of  paramount  inter- 
est. More  than  forty  years  ago,  a  system  of  making  appointments  to  of- 
fice grew  up,  based  upon  the  maxim,  "  To  the  victors  belong  the  spoils." 
The  old  rule,  the  true  rule,  that  honesty,  capacity,  and  fidelity  constitute 
the  only  real  qualifications  for  office,  and  that  there  is  no  other  claim, 
gave  place  to  the  idea  that  party  services  were  to  be  chiefly  considered. 
All  parties  in  practice  have  adopted  this  system.  It  has  been  essentially 
modified  since  its  first  introduction.  It  has  not,  however,  been  improved. 
At  first  tlic  President,  either  directly  or  through  the  heads  of  departments, 
made  all  tlie  appointments,  but  gradually  the  appointing  power  in  many 
cases  passed  into  the  control  of  members  of  Congress.  The  offices  in  these 
cases  have  become,  not  merely  rewards  for  party  services,  but  rewards  for 
services  to  party  leaders.  This  system  destroys  the  independence  ot  the 
separate  departments  of  the  government.  It  tends  directly  to  extrava- 
gance and  official  incapacity.  It  is  a  temptation  to  dishonesty.  It  hin- 
ders and  impairs  that  careful  supervision  and  strict  accountability  by 
which  alone  faithful  and  efficient  public  service  can  be  secured.  It  ob- 
structs the  prompt  removal  and  sure  punishment  of  the  unworthy.  In 
every  way  it  degrades  the  civil  service  and  the  character  of  the  govern- 
ment. It  is  felt,  I  am  confident,  by  a  large  majority  of  the  members  ot 
Congress  to  be  an  intolerable  burden  and  an  unwarrantable  hindrance  to 
the  proper  discharge  of  their  legitimate  duties.  It  ought  to  be  abolished. 
The  reform  should  be  thorough,  radical,  and  complete.    "We  should  return 


418  RUTHERFORD   B.   HAYES. 

to  the  principles  and  practice  of  the  founders  of  the  government,  supply- 
ing by  legislation,  when  needed,  that  which  was  formerly  established  by 
custom.  They  neither  expected  nor  desired  from  the  public  officer  any 
partisan  service.  They  meant  that  public  officers  should  owe  their  whole 
service  to  the  government  and  to  the  peo^Dle.  They  meant  that  the  officer 
should  be  secure  in  his  tenure  as  long  as  his  personal  character  remained 
untarnished  and  the  performance  of  his  duties  satisfactory. 

If  elected,  I  shall  conduct  the  administration  of  the  government  upon 
these  principles,  and  all  constitutional  powers  vested  in  the  Exective  will 
be  employed  to  establish  this  reform. 

The  declaration  of  princij)les  by  the  Cincinnati  Convention  makes  no 
announcement  m  favor  of  a  single  Presidential  term,  I  do  not  assume  to 
add  to  that  declaration,  but,  believing  that  the  restoration  of  the  civil 
service  to  the  system  established  by  Washington  and  followed  by  the  early 
Presidents  can  be  best  accomplished  by  an  Executive  who  is  imder  no 
temptation  to  use  the  j)atronage  of  his  office  to  promote  his  own  re-elec- 
tion, I  desire  to  perform  what  I  regard  as  a  duty  in  stating  now  my  inflex- 
ible purpose,  if  elected,  not  to  be  a  candidate  for  election  to  a  second 
term. 

On  the  currency  question  I  have  frequently  expressed  my  views  in  pub- 
lic, and  I  stand  by  my  record  on  this  subject.  I  regard  all  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  relating  to  the  payment  oi  the  public  indebtedness,  the 
legal-tender  notes  included,  as  constituting  a  pledge  and  moral  obligation 
of  the  government,  which  must  in  good  faith  be  kept.  It  is  my  convic- 
tion that  the  feeling  of  uncertainty  inseparable  from  an  irredeemable  pa- 
per currency,  with  its  fluctuations  of  values,  is  one  ot  the  great  obstacles 
to  a  revival  of  confidence  m  business  and  to  a  return  of  prosperity. 
That  uncertainty  can  be  ended  in  but  one  way — the  resumption  of  specie 
payment.  But  the  longer  the  instability  connected  with  our  present  money 
system  is  permitted  to  continue,  the  greater  will  be  the  injury  inflicted 
upon  pur  economical  interests  and  all  classes  of  society.  If  elected,  I 
shall  approve  every  appropriate  measure  to  accomplish  the  desired  end, 
and  shall  oppose  any  step  bacRward. 

The  resolution  with  respect  to  the  public  school  system  is  one  which 
should  receive  the  hearty  support  of  the  American  people.  Agitation 
upon  this  subject  is  to  be  apprehended,  until  by  constitutional  amendment 
the  schools  are  placed  beyond  all  danger  of  sectarian  control  or  interfer- 
ence.    The  Republican  party  is  pledged  to  secure  such  an  amendment. 

The  resolution  of  the  convention  on  the  subject  of  the  permanent  paci- 
fication of  the  country,  and  the  complete  protection  of  all*  its  Citizens  in 
the  free  enjoyment  of  all  their  constitutional  rights,  is  timely  and  of  great 
importance.  The  condition  of  the  Southern  States  attracts  the  attention 
and  commands  the  sympathy  ot  the  people  of  the  whole  Union.     In  their 


RUTHERFORD  B.    HAYES.  419 

progressive  recovery  from  the  effects  of  the  war,  their  first  necessity  is  an 
intelligent  and  honest  administration  of  the  government,  which  will  pro- 
tect all  classes  of  citizens  in  all  their  political  and  private  rights.  What 
the  South  most  needs  is  peace,  and  peace  depends  upon  the  supremacy  of 
law.  There  can  be  no  enduring  peace  if  the  constitutional  rights  of  any 
portion  of  the  people  are  habitually  disregarded.  A  division  of  political 
parties  resting  merely  upon  distinctions  of  race,  or  upon  sectional  lines, 
is  always  unfortunate,  and  may  be  disastrous.  The  welfare  of  the  South, 
alike  with  that  of  every  other  part  of  the  country,  depends  upon  the  at- 
tractions it  can  offer  to  labor,  to  immigration,  and  to  capital.  But  labor- 
ers will  not  go,  and  capital  will  not  be  ventured,  where  the  constitution 
and  the  laws  are  set  at  defiance,  and  distraction,  apprehension,  and  alarm 
take  the  place  of  peace-loving  and  law-abiding  social  life.  All  parts  of 
the  constitution  are  sacred,  and  must  be  sacredly  observed — the  parts  that 
are  new  no  less  than  the  parts  that  are  old.  The  moral  and  material  pros- 
perity of  the  southern  states  can  be  most  effectually  advanced  by  a  hearty 
and  generous  recognition  of  the  rights  of  all,  by  all — a  recognition  with- 
out reserve  or  exception.  With  such  a  recognition  fully  accorded,  it  will 
be  practicable  to  promote,  by  the  influence  of  all  legitimate  agencies  of 
the  general  government,  the  efforts  of  the  people  of  those  states  to  obtain 
for  themselves  the  blessings  of  honest  and  capable  local  government.  If 
elected,  I  shall  consider  it  not  only  my  duty,  but  it  will  be  my  ardent  de- 
sire, to  labor  for  the  attainment  of  this  end. 

Let  me  assure  my  countrymen  of  the  Southern  states  that,  if  I  shall  be 
charged  with  the  duty  of  organizing  an  administration,  it  will  be  one 
which  will  regard  and  clierish  their  truest  interests,  the  interests  of  the 
white  and  of  the  colored  people,  both  and  equally,  and  which  will  put 
forth  its  best  efforts  in  behalf  of  a  civil  policy  which  will  wipe  out  for 
ever  the  distinction  between  North  and  South  in  our  common  countiy. 
With  a  civil  service  organized  upon  a  system  which  will  secure  purity, 
experience,  efficiency,  and  economy,  a  strict  regard  for  the  public  welfare 
solely  in  appointments,  and  the  speedy,  thorough,  and  unsparing  prosecu' 
tion  and  punishment  of  all  public  officers  who  betray  official  trusts,  with 
a  sound  currency,  with  education  unsectarian  and  free  to  all,  with  simplic- 
ity and  frugality  in  public  and  private  affairs,  and  with  a  fraternal  spirit 
of  hamiony  pervading  the  people  of  all  sections  and  classes,  we  may  rea- 
sonably hojje  that  the  second  century  of  our  existence  as  a  nation  will,  by 
the  blessing  of  God,  be  prominent  as  an  era  of  good  feeling  and  a  period 
of  progress,  prosperity,  and  happiness. 

Very  respectfully,  your  fellow-citizen, 

R.  B.  Hayes. 


CHAPTER   XXT. 


WILLIAM   A.   WHEELER,   THE    REPUBLICAN    CANDIDATE    FOR   VICE- 
PRESIDENT. 

William  A.  Wheeler,  the  Republican  candidate  for  Yice- 
President,  was  born  in  Malone,  Franklin  County,  New  York, 
June  30,  1819,  and  is  consequently  fifty-seven  years  of  age 
and  but  a  few  days  the  senior  of  Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  the 
Democratic  candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  His  early  life 
was  the  same  as  tliat  common  to  the  large  majority  of  the 
early  settlers  of  tliat  part  of  New  York  State  which  was  at 
that  time  almost  the  frontier  section. 

His  early  education  was  gained  under  great  difficulties,  which 
are  fitly  set  forth  in  his  address  to  the  people  who  welcomed 
him  home  on  his  return  to  Malone  after  his  nomination.  Speak- 
ing to  the  young  men,  he  said  : 

"  I  know  every  phase  of  tlie  struggle  of  young  men  seeking 
to  make  their  way ;  years  ago  I  trampled  through  the  storms 
and  snows  of  winter  to  my  first  district  school  in  an  adjoining 
town.  In  the  log  houses  of  the  neighborhood,  through  the 
shrunken  roofs  of  the  humble  farmers'  houses,  I  have  at  night 
literally  been  a  star  gazer;  but  in  my  wildest  dreams  and  high- 
est building  of  castles  in  the  air,  so  great  an  honor  as  that  now 
conferred  upon  me  never  occurred  to  me.  This  result  shows 
that  in  this  country  every  man  of  character  is  the  equal  of 
every  other  man." 

Despite  all  difficulties  he  succeeded  in  getting,  what  in  those 


WILLIAM   A.    WHEELER.  421 

days  was  tlien  considered  a  good  common  school  education, 
and  before  lie  attained  his  majority  he  was  elected  Town  Clerk, 
and  lie  says  the  emoluments — $30  per  year — were  more  to  him 
than  the  thousands  he  has  since  earned.  He  was  early  chosen 
District  Attorney  in  his  own  county,  and  was  then  chosen  mem- 
ber of  the  Assembly  for  two  terms. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen  years  he  entered  the  University  of 
Vermont.  He  remained  there  two  years,  and  then  concluded 
to  leave  college  and  enter  upon  the  study  of  law.  When  he 
liad  completed  his  course  he  was  admitted  to  practice,  and  at 
once  opened  an  office.  His  first  pleadings  were  very  success- 
ful, and  he  became  very  popular  with  his  clients  and  neigh- 
bors, so  that  after  a  few  years  he  was  nominated  by  the  Demo- 
crats to  be  District  Attorney  of  Frankhn  County — a  position 
which  he  continued  to  fill  during  several  years. 

His  first  election  occurred  immediately  after  the  adoption  of 
the  new  Constitution,  being  the  first  that  was  held  under  its 
provisions.  He  became  a  candidate  for  the  Assembly  at  tli-e 
close  of  liis  last  term  as  District  Attorney,  and  was  elected  on 
the  Whig  ticket,  the  county  having  cast  a  tie  vote  at  the  last 
election  between  the  Locofoco  and  Whig  candidates.  Mr. 
Wheeler  was  again  chosen  to  represent  his  county  in  the  Leg- 
islature, and  at  the  close  of  his  term  gave  several  years  to  his 
profession,  and  became  cashier  of  the  local  bank,  a  position 
which  he  held  for  fourteen  years.  He  became  President  of  the 
Ogdensburg  and  Rouse's  Point  Railroad,  and  continued  to  be 
the  active  and  supervisory  officer  for  eleven  years.  When  the 
Republican  party  was  formed  from  the  Whig  organization,  he 
followed  its  fortunes,  and  in  1858  was  elected  State  Senator. 
He  was  chos(in  President  pro  tern,  for  two  terms,  the  Senate  in 
1858  being  the  first  in  this  State  in  which  the  Republican  party 
had  control. 

In  the  Fall  of  1859  he  was  a  candidate  from  the  XYIth  Con- 
gressional District,  composed  of  the  Counties  of  Clinton,  Es- 
sex, and  Franklin.  This  was  the  XXXVlIth  Congress,  mem- 
orable for  its  grave  responsibilities  at  the  war  crisis.     The  three 


422  WILLIAM   A.    WHEELER. 

counties  were  all  slightly  Republican,  and  gave  Mr.  Wheeler  a 
majority  of  about  1,000.  During  the  long  and  active  sessions 
of  this  Congress  Mr.  Wheeler  acted  with  his  party  in  the  Anti- 
Slavery  measures  and  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 

Mr.  Wheeler  retired  to  private  life,  where  he  remained  for 
four  years.  In  1867  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  State 
Constitutional  Convention,  which  assembled  in  June,  1868.  In 
the  Republican  caucus,  preliminary  to  the  election  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  Convention,  Mr.  Wheeler's  name  was  mentioned  for 
presiding  officer  with  those  of  Thomas  G.  Alvord  of  Syracuse, 
and  Charles  G.  Folger  of  Geneva,  now  one  of  the  Judges  of 
the  Court  of  Appeals.  Mr.  Wheeler  was  elected.  Ilis  position 
as  the  presiding  officer  removed  him  from  participation  in  the 
debates  whicli  gave  opportunities  for  a  display  of  legal  abilities. 
His  opening  speech  on  taking  the  chair  was  about  the  only  ef- 
fort calculated  to  attract  public  attention.  It  had  an  important 
bearing  upon  the  subject  of  negro  suffrage,  and  the  Committee 
before  whom  this  question  came  reported  an  article  embodying 
the  proposed  change  in  the  Constitution.  In  the  Autumn  fol- 
lowing the  adjournment  of  the  Convention,  Mr.  Wheeler  was 
again  a  candidate  for  Congress  in  the  XVIIth  District,  com- 
posed of  the  counties  of  Franklin  and  St.  Lawrence,  and  was 
elected.  This  was  the  XLIst  Congress,  of  which  Mr.  Blaine 
was  chosen  Speaker  for  the  first  time.  Mr.  Wheeler  was  ap- 
pointed by  him  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  the  Pacific 
Railroad,  and  upon  his  re-election  in  November,  1870,  with 
very  little  opposition  was  appointed  to  the  same  position.  To 
the  XLIIId  Congress  he  was  elected  by  a  very  large  majority, 
and  was  returned  in  the  succeeding  contest.  He  was  at  that 
time  appointed  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations, 
but  the  most  important  achievement  of  his  Congressional  ser- 
vice, and  that  which  gave  him  prominence  before  the  country, 
was  the  "  Wheeler  Compromise."  Previous  to  this  a  sub-com- 
mittee of  the  Select  Committee  on  Louisiana  Affairs,  consisting 
of  Charles  Foster,  William  Walter  Phelps,  and  Clarkson  N. 
Potter,  had  visited  Louisiana,  and  presented  a  unanimous  re- 


WILLIAM   A.    WHEELER.  423 

port  to  tlie  effect  that  the  government  of  which  William  Pitt 
Kellogg- was  the  head,  was  largely  responsible  for  the  misfortmies 
of  the  people  in  that  State.  This  report  was  accepted  by  all 
but  the  blindest  of  partisans  in  the  North  as  a  truthful  present- 
ation of  the  situation.  The  other  members  of  the  Select  Com- 
mittee took  the  extraordinary  step  of  going  to  Louisiana  and 
repeating  the  work  already  done.  The  result  was  that  one  of 
the  other  members  of  the  Committee,  Samuel  S.  Marshal, 
agreed  with  Messrs.  Foster,  Piielps,  and  Potter  that  the  Kellogg 
Government  was  a  usurpation,  and  should  not  be  recognized, 
and  that  the  action  of  the  Returning  Board  was  illegal,  but 
stated  that  a  compromise  was  desirable. 

This  was  the  majority  report.  Messrs.  Hoar,  Wheeler,  and 
Frye,  as  a  minority,  also  presented  a  report  which  contained 
little  that  was  new,  reciting  the  events  in  Louisiana  before 
1874,  and  concluding  that  a  main  source  of  trouble  lay  in  suf-' 
ficient  education  not  being  provided  for  the  negro.  Out  of 
these  reports  grew  the  "  Wheeler  Compromise,"  from  which 
the  complexion  of  the  Louisiana  Legislature  became  Republican 
in  the  Senate  and  Democratic  in  the  House,  while  Mr.  Kellogg 
retained  the  office  of  Governor. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  CONVENTION  OP  1876. 

The  Democratic  Convention  was  unlike  the  Republican  in 
almost  every  particular.  Gov.  Tilden,  like  Ex-Speaker  Blaine, 
was  largely  the  favorite,  but  unlike  him,  was  speedily  nom- 
inated. 

The  Convention  assembled  on  the  27th  of  June,  1876,  and 
its  work  was  speedily  accomplished.  The  only  matters  of  its 
history  worth  recording  are  The  Platform,  and  the  ballots  for 
the  candidates. 

After  spending  the  first  day  in  preliminary  work,  the  Con- 
vention met  on  the  second  day,  and  adopted  the  following 
platform : 

The  Platform. 

We,  the  delegates  of  the  democratic  party  of  the  United  States  in 
national  convention  assembled,  do  hereby  declare  the  administration  of 
the  federal  government  to  be  in  urgent  need  of  immediate  reform.  We 
do  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  nominees  of  this  convention  and  of  the  demo- 
cratic party  in  each  state,  a  zealous  effort  and  co-operation  to  this  end, 
and  do  hereby  appeal  to  our  fellow-citizens  of  every  former  political  con- 
nection, to  undertake  with  us  this  first  and  most  pressing  patriotic  duty 
of  the  democracy  of  the  country.  We  do  here  reaffirm  our  faith  in  the 
permanency  of  the  federal  Union,  our  devotion  to  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States  with  its  amendments,  universally  accepted  as  a  final  settle- 
ment of  the  controversies  that  engendered  civil  war,  and  do  here  record 
our  steadfast  confidence  in  the  perpetuity  of  republican  self-government 
in  absolute  acquiescence  to  the  will  of  the  majority,  the  vital  principle 
of  republics ;  in  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  over  the  military  authority ; 
in  the  total  separation  of  church  and  state,  for  the  sake  alike  of  civil  and 
religious  freedom ;  in  the  equality  of  all  citizens  before  the  just  laws  of 
their  own  enactment ;  in  the  liberty  of  individual  conduct  unvexed  by 
sumptuary  laws ;  in  the  faithful  education  of  the  rising  generation  that 


DEMOCRATIC  CONVENTION  OF  1876.  425 

they  may  persevere,  enjoy,  and  transmit  these  best  conditions  of  human 
happiness  and  hope.  We  behold  the  noblest  product  of  a  hundred  years 
of  changeful  history,  but  while  upholding  the  bond  of  our  union  and  tlie 
great  charter  of  these  our  rights,  it  behooves  a  free  people  to  practice 
that  eternal  vigilance  which  is  the  price  of  liberty. 

Reform  is  necessary  to  rebuild  and  establish  in  the  hearts  of  the  whole 
people  the  union,  eleven  years  ago  happily  rescued  from  the  danger  of  a 
corrupt  centralism,  which,  after  inflicting  upon  ten  states  the  rapacity  of 
carpet-bag  tyrannies,  has  honeycombed  the  offices  of  tlie  federal  govern- 
ment itself  with  incapacity,  waste,  and  fraud,  infected  states  and  munici- 
palities with  the  contagion  of  misrule,  and  locked  fast  the  prosperity  of 
an  industrious  people  in  the  paralysis  of  hard  times.  Reform  is  necessary 
to  establish  a  sound  currency,  restore  the  public  credit,  and  maintain  the 
national  honor.  We  denounce  the  failure  for  all  these  eleven  years  to 
make  good  the  promise  of  the  legal  tender  notes  which  are  a  changing 
standard  of  value  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  and  the  non-payment  of 
which  is  a  disregard  of  the  plighted  faith  of  the  nation.  We  denounce 
the  improvidence  which,  in  eleven  years  of  peace,  has  taken  from  the 
people  in  federal  taxes  thirteen  times  the  whole  amount  of  the  legal  ten- 
der notes,  and  squandered  four  times  this  sum  in  useless  expense,  without 
accumulating  any  reserve  for  their  redemption.  We  denounce  the  finan- 
cial imbecility  and  immorality  of  the  party  which,  during  eleven  years 
of  peace,  has  made  no  advance  toward  resumption ;  that,  instead,  has 
obstructed  resumption  by  wasting  our  resources  and  exhausting  all  our 
surplus  income,  and  while  annually  professing  to  intend  a  speedy  return 
to  specie  payments,  has  annually  enacted  fresh  hindrances  thereto.  As 
such  a  hindrance  we  denounce  the  resumption  clause  of  the  act  of  1875, 
and  we  here  demand  its  repeal.  We  demand  a  judicious  system  of  prep- 
aration by  public  economies,  by  official  retrenchments,  and  by  wise  finance 
which  shall  enable  the  nation  soon  to  assure  the  whole  world  of  its  per- 
fect ability  and  its  perfect  readiness  to  meet  any  of  its  promises  at  tlie 
call  of  the  creditor  entitled  to  payment.  We  believe  such  a  system  well 
devised  and  above  all,  intrusted  to  competent  hands  for  execution,  creat- 
ing at  no  time  an  artificial  scarcity  of  currency,  and  at  no  time  alarming 
the  public  mind  into  a  w^ithdrawal  of  that  vaster  machinery  of  credit 
by  which  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  all  business  transactions  are  performed ; 
a  system  open,  public,  and  inspiring  general  confidence,  would  from  the 
day  of  its  adoption  bring  healing  on  its  wings  to  all  our  harassed  indus- 
tries, and  set  in  motion  the  wheels  of  commerce,  manufactures,  and  the 
mechanical  arts,  restore  employment  to  labor,  and  renew  in  all  its  natural 
force  the  prosperity  of  the  people.  Reform  is  necessary  in  the  sum  and 
mode  of  federal  taxation,  to  the  end  that  capital  may  be  set  free  from 
distrust  and  labor  lightly  burdened.    We  denounce  the  present  tariff. 


426  DEMOCRATIC  CONVENTION  OP  1876. 

levied  upon  nearly  4,000  articles,  as  a  masterpiece  of  injustice,  inequality, 
and  false  pretence.  It  yields  a  dwindling,  not  a  yearly  rising,  revenue  ; 
it  has  impoverished  many  industries  to  subsidize  a  few;  it  prohibits 
imports  that  might  purchase  products  of  American  labor ;  it  has  degraded 
American  commerce  from  the  first  to  an  inferior  rank  on  the  liigh  seas ;  it 
has  cut  down  the  sale  of  American  manufactures  at  home  and  abroad  and 
depleted  the  returns  of  American  agriculture — an  industry  followed  by 
half  our  people ;  it  costs  the  people  five  times  more  than  it  produces  to 
the  treasury,  obstructs  the  processes  of  production,  and  wastes  the  fruits 
of  labor;  it  promotes  fraud  and  fosters  smuggling,  enriches  dishonest 
officials  and  bankrupts  honest  merchants.  We  demand  that  all  custom 
house  taxation  shall  be  only  for  revenue. 

Reform  is  necessary  in  the  scale  of  public  expenses,  federal,  state,  and 
municipal.  Our  federal  taxation  has  swollen  from  sixty  millions  gold  in 
1860  to  four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  currency  in  1870,  or  in  a  decade 
from  less  than  five  dollars  per  head  to  more  than  eighteen  dollars  per 
head.  Since  the  peace  the  people  have  paid  to  their  tax  gatherers  more 
than  thrice  the  sum  of  the  national  debt  and  more  than  twice  that  sum 
for  the  Federal  government  alone. 

We  demand  a  vigorous  frugality  in  every  department  and  from  every 
ofl[icer  of  the  government ;  reform  is  necessary  to  put  a  stop  to  the  profli- 
gate waste  of  the  public  lands  and  their  diversion  from  actual  settlers  by 
the  party  in  power,  which  has  squandered  20,000,000  of  acres  upon  rail- 
roads alone,  and  out  of  more  than  thrice  that  aggregate  has  disposed  of 
less  than  a  sixth  directly  to  tillers  of  the  soil. 

Reform  is  necessary  to  correct  the  omissions  of  the  Republican  Congress 
and  the  errors  of  our  treaties  and  our  diplomacy  which  have  stripped  our 
fellow  citizens  of  foreign  birth  and  kindred  race  recrossing  the  Atlantic 
of  the  shield  of  American  citizenship,  and  have  exposed  our  brethren  of 
the  Pacific  coast  to  the  incursions  of  a  race  not  sprung  from  the  same 
great  parent  stock,  and  in  fact  now  by  law  denied  citizenship  through 
naturalization  as  being  neither  accustomed  to  the  traditions  of  a  progres- 
sive civilization  nor  exercised  in  liberty  under  equal  laws.  We  denounce 
the  policy  which  thus  discards  the  liberty-loving  German  and  tolerates 
the  revival  of  the  Coolie  trade  in  Mongolian  women  imported  for  immoral 
purposes  and  Mongolian  men  hired  to  perform  servile  labor  contracts,  and 
demand  such  modification  of  the  treaty  with  the  Chinese  empire,  or  such 
legislation  by  Congress  within  a  constitutional  limitation  as  shall  prevent 
the  further  importation  or  immigration  of  the  Mongolian  race. 

Reform  is  necessary  and  can  never  be  effected  but  by  making  it  the  con- 
trolling issue  of  the  elections  and  lifting  it  above  the  two  false  issues  with 
which  the  ofiice-holding  class  and  the  party  in  power  seek  to  smother  it. 
The  false  issues  with  which  they  would  enkindle  sectional  strife  in  respect 


ov  r'Bv  > 

TJNIVEBSITYJ 

DEMOCRATIC   CONVENTION   OF  ffe^CALIFO^^^^^ 

to  the  public  schools  of  which  tlie  establishment  and  support  belongs  ex- 
clusively to  the  several  states,  and  "which  the  Democratic  party  has  cher- 
ished from  their  foundation  and  resolved  to  maintain  without  partiality 
or  preference  for  any  class,  sect,  or  creed,  and  without  contribution  from 
the  treasury  to  any  of  them,  .and  the  false  issue  by  which  they  seek  to 
light  anew  the  dying  embers  of  sectional  hate  between  kindred  peoples 
once  estranged,  but  now  reunited  in  one  indivisible  Republic,  and  a  com- 
mon destiny. 

Reform  is  necessary  in  the  civil  service.  Experience  proves  that  the  ef- 
ficient economical  conduct  of  the  governmental  business  is  not  possible  if 
its  civil  service  be  subject  to  change  at  every  election,  to  be  a  prize  fought 
for  at  the  ballot  box,  to  be  the  brief  reward  of  party  zeal  instead  of  posts 
of  honor  assigned  for  proved  competency  and  held  for  fidelity  in  the  pub- 
lic employ,  that  the  dispensing  of  patronage  should  neither  be  a  tax  upon 
the  time  of  all  our  public  men  nor  the  instrument  of  their  ambition. 
Hero  again  professions  falsified  in  the  performance,  attest  that  the  party 
in  power  can  work  out  no  practical  or  salutary  reform.    . 

Reform  is  necessary  even  more  in  the  higher  grades  of  the  public  ser- 
vice. President,  Vice-President,  judges,  senators,  representatives,  cabinet 
officers — these  and  all  others  in  authority  are  the  people's  senators.  Their 
offices  are  not  a  private  perquisite;  they  are  a  public  trust.  When  the 
annals  of  this  Republic  show  the  disgrace  and  censure  of  a  Vice-President, 
a  late  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  marking  his  rulings  as  a 
presiding  officer,  three  senators  profiting  secretly  by  their  votes  as  law 
makers ;  five  chairmen  of  the  leading  committees  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives exposed  in  jobbery,  a  late  secretary  of  the  treasury  forcing  bal- 
ances in  the  public  accounts,  a  late  attorney  general  misappropriating 
public  funds,  a  secretary  of  the  navy  enriched  or  enriching  friends  by  per- 
centages levied  off  the  profits  of  contractors  within  his  department ;  an 
embassador  to  England  censured  in  a  dishonorable  speculation,  and  the 
President's  private  secretary  barely  escaping  conviction  upon  trial  for 
guilty  complicity  in  frauds  upon  the  revenue,  a  secretary  of  war  impeached 
for  crimes  and  confessed  misdemeanors,  the  demonstration  is  complete 
that  the  first  step  in  reform  must  be  the  people's  choice  of  honest  men 
from  another  party,  lest  the  disease  of  one  political  organization  infest; 
the  body  politic,  and  lest,  by  making  no  change  of  men  or  party,  we  can 
get  no  change  of  measures  and  no  reform.  Allthese  abuses,  wrongs,  and 
crimes,  the  product  of  sixteen  years'  ascendancy  of  the  republican  party, 
create  a  necessity  for  reform  confessed  by  the  republicans  themselves, 
but  their  reformers  are  voted  down  in  convention  and  displaced  from 
the  cabinet.  The  party's  mass  of  honest  voters  are  powerless  to  resits 
the  eighty  thousand  office-holders,  its  leaders  and  guides. 

Reform  can  only  be  had  by  a  peaceful  civic  revolution.    We  demand  a 


428  DEMOCRATIC  CONVENTION  OF  1876. 

change  of  system,  a  change  of  administration,  a  change  of  parties,  that 
we  may  have  a  change  of  measures  and  of  men. 

After  but  little  discussion,  the  platform  was  adopted,  and 
the  Convention  proceeded  to  ballot  for  a  candidate  for  Presi- 
dent. The  candidates  were  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  of  New  York ; 
Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  of  Indiana ;  Gen.  Hancock,  of  Penn- 
sylvania ;  Ex-Governor  Parker,  of  New  Jersey ;  Ex-Governor 
William  Allen,  of  Ohio  ;  and  Senator  Bayard,  of  Delaware. 

FIRST  BALLOT. 

Whole  number  of  votes  cast,                -           -            -            -  713 

Necessary  for  a  choice,  -----  476 

Samuel  J.  Tilden  had  -----  403 

Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  -            -            -           -            -  134 

General  Hancock,      -  -            -            -            -            -  75 

William  Allen,           -  -            -            -       .     -           -  56 

Senator  Bayard,         -  -           -            -            -            -  37 

Joel  Parker,  -  -  -  -  -  -  -18 

SECOND  BALLOT. 
Whole  number  of  votes  cast,  -  -  -  -        726 

Necessary  for  a  choice,  -----        434 

Samuel  J.  Tilden,      -  -  -  -  -  -    508 

Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  -  -  -  -  -      75 

General  Hancock,      -  -  -  -  -  -      60 

William  Alleh, 54 

Senator  Bayard,        -  -  -  -  -  -11 

Joel  Parker,  -  --  -  -  -  -18 

and  Governor  Tilden  was  declared  elected. 

On  the  third  and  last  day  of  the  Convention  Governor  Hen- 
dricks was  nominated  on  the  first  ballot  with  so  much  unan- 
imity that  the  Indiana  delegation  which  refused  to  have  him 
considered  for  any  but  the  first  place  on  the  ticket  acquiesced, 
and  the  Democratic  Centennial  Ticket  stands 

FOR    PRESIDENT, 

SAMUEL  J.  TILDEN  of  New  York. 

FOR  VICE-PRESTDENT, 

THOMAS  A.  HENDRICKS  of  Indiana. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 


SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN. 

Governor  Tilden  was  born  at  New  Lebanon,  in  the  county  of 
Columbia  and  State  of  New  York,  in  tlie  year  1814 — the  year 
which  ruined  the  fortunes  of  the  great  Napoleon.  One  of  his 
ancestors,  Nathaniel  Tilden,  was  Mayor  of  the  city  of  Tenter- 
den,  Kent,  England,  in  1623.  He  was  succeeded  in  that  office 
by  his  cousin  John,  as  he  had  been  preceded  by  his  uncle  John 
in  1585  and  1600.  He  removed  with  his  family  to  Scituate, 
in  the  colony  of  Massachusetts,  in  1634.  His  brother  Joseph 
was  one  of  the  merchant  adventurers  of  London  who  fitted  out 
the  Mayflower.  This  Nathaniel  Tilden  married  Hannah 
Bourne,  one  of  whose  sisters  married  a  brother  of  Governor 
Winslow,  and  another  a  son  of  Governor  Bradford. 

Governor  Tilden's  grandfather,  John  Tilden,  settled  in  Co- 
lumbia County.  The  Governor's  mother  was  descended  from 
William  Jones,  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  colony  of  New 
Haven,  who  in  all  the  histories  of  Connecticut  is  represented 
to  have  been  the  son  of  Colonel  John  Jones,  one  of  the  regi- 
cide judges  of  Charles  I,  who  is  said  to  liave  married  a  sister 
of  Oliver  Cromwell  and  a  cousin  of  John  Hampden.  The  Gov- 
ernor's father,  a  farmer  and  merchant  of  New  Lebanon,  was  a 
man  of  notable  judgment  and  practical  sense  and  the  accepted 
oracle  of  the  county  upon  all  matters  of  public  concern,  while 
his  opinion  was  also  eagerly  sought  and  justly  valued  by  all  his 
neighbors,  but  by  none  more  than  by  the  late  President  Yan 


430  SAMUEL   J.   TILDEN. 

Bur'en,  who  till  his  death  was  one  of  his  most  cherished  inti- 
mate and  personal  friends. 

From  his  father  Governor  Tilden  inherited  a  taste  for  polit- 
ical inquiries,  and  in  his  companionship  enjoyed  peculiar  op- 
portunities for  acquiring  an  early  familiarity  with  the  bearings 
of  the  various  questions  which  agitated  our  country  in  his 
youth. 

In  early  youth  Governor  Tilden  showed  a  strong  love  for 
study,  and  a  determination  to  be  the  master  of  every  subject 
Avhich  came  to  his  notice,  which  has  marked  his  life  at  every 
step  of  his  upward  course.  From  a  very  early  age  there  has 
been  every  evidence  that  no  j)osition  was  beyond  his  powers, 
and  that  with  favorable  circumstances  he  would  become  one  of 
the  great  men  of  his  day. 

Young  Tilden  entered  college  in  his  eighteenth  year.  The 
fall  of  1832,  when  he  was  to  enter  college,  was  rendered  mem- 
orable by  the  second  election  of  General  Jackson  to  the  Presi- 
dency and  Martin  Yan  Buren  to  the  Yice-Presidency  of  the 
United  States,  and  of  William  L.  Marcy  to  the  Governorship 
of  the  State  of  New  York.  In  that  contest  an  effort  was  made 
to  effect  a  coalition  between  the  National  Republicans  and  the 
Anti-Masons.  The  success  of  the  Democracy  depended  upon 
the  defeat  of  that  coalition.  Samuel  heard  the  subject  dis- 
cussed in  the  family,  and  was  especially  impressed  by  what  fell 
from  the  lips  of  an  uncle  who  deplored  his  inability  to  "  wreak 
his  thoughts  upon  expression."  Samuel  disappeared  for  two  or 
three  days,  and  in  the  seclusion  of  his  chamber  proceeded  to 
set  down  the  views  he  had  gathered  upon  the  subject,  and  in 
due  time  brought  the  result  to  his  father,  at  once  the  most  ap- 
preciative and  the  least  indulgent  critic  of  his  acquaintance. 
The  father  was  so  highly  pleased  with  the  paper  that  he  took 
his  son  to  see  Mr.  Yan  Buren,  then  at  Lebanon  Springs,  to 
read  it  to  him.  They  found  so  much  merit  in  the  performance 
that  they  decided  it  should  be  published  with  the  signatures 
of  a  dozen  or  more  leading  Democrats,  and  it  shortly  after 
appeared  in  the  Albany  ^ry/ws  as  an  address,  occupying  about  half 


SAMUEL    J.    TILDEN.  431 

a  page  of  that  print,  and  from  which  it  was  copied  into  most  of 
the  Democratic  papers  of  the  state.  .  The  Evening  Journal 
paid  it  the  compliment  of  attributing  it  to  the  pen  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  and  the  Albany  Argus  paid  it  the  greater  compliment 
of  stating  "by  authority"  that  Mr.  Yan  Buren  was  not  the 
author. 

Mr.  Tilden  had  not  been  long  at  Yale  College  before  his 
hcaltli  gave  way,  and  obliged  him  to  leave.  After  some  rest 
he  was  enabled  to  resume  his  studies,  and  in  1834  entered  the 
University  of  New  York,  where  he  completed  his  academic 
education.  He  then  entered  the  law  office  of  the  late  JohnW. 
Edmunds,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  where  he  enjoyed  peculiar 
facilities  for  the  prosecution  of  his  favorite  studies  of  law  and 
politics. 

The  accession  of  Mr.  Yan  Buren  to  the  Presidency  in  1837 
was  followed  by  the  most  trying  financial  revulsion  that  had 
yet  occurred  in  our  history.  During  that  summer  appeared 
the  Presidential  message  calling  for  a  special  session  of  Con- 
gress, and  recommending  the  separation  of  the  Government 
from  the  banks  and  the  establishment  of  the  independent 
Treasury.  This  measure  provoked  voluminous  and  acrimo- 
nious debate  throughout  the  country,  even  before  it  engaged 
the  attention  of  Congress. 

Mr.  Tilden,  though  still  a  student,  sprang  to  the  defense  of 
the  President's  policy,  and  wrote  a  series  of  papers,  marked 
by  all  the  characteristics  of  his  maturity,  and  advocating  the 
proposed  separation  and  the  redeemability  of  the  Government 
currency  in  specie.     These  articles  were  signed  "  Crino." 

In  the  fall  of  1838,  Nathaniel  P.  Talmadge,  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States  from  New  York,  wdio  had  separated  from  the 
Democratic  party  and  joined  the  Whigs  in  opposition  to  the 
financial  policy  of  President  Yan  Buren,  was  announced  to 
speak  on  the  issues  of  the  day  in  Columbia  County.  A  meet- 
ing had  been  arranged  very  quietly,  at  which  it  was  lioped  he 
might  exert  an  influence  upon  the  doubtful  men  and  change 
the  political  complexion  of  the  party.     The  Tildens  heard  of 


432  SAMUEL  J.   TILDEN. 

the  proposed  meeting  about  noon  of  the  day  upon  which  it  was 
to  be  held.  They  promptly  sent  word  to  all  the  Democrats  of 
the  vicinity,  and  the  result  was  one  of  the  largest  meetings 
ever  known  in  that  region.  Talmadge,  in  the  course  of  his 
speech,  took  great  pains  to  convince  his  audience  that  it  was 
the  Democrats  that  had  changed  their  position,  but  that  he 
and  his  friends  were  unchanged.  At  the  close  of  his  remarks 
one  of  the  Whig  leaders  of  the  movement  offered  a  resolution, 
which  passed  without  opposition,  inviting  any  Democrats  in  the 
assembly  that  might  be  so  disposed  to  reply  to  the  Senator. 
The  young  Democrats,  who  had  mostly  gathered  in  the  rear  of 
the  hall,  regarding  this  as  a  challenge  to  them,  shouted  for  Til- 
den.  Samuel,  yielding  to  the  obvious  sentiment  of  the  meet- 
ing, came  forward,  and  took  the  place  just  vacated  by  the  Sen- 
ator. 

After  discussing  the  main  question  of  the  controversy,  he 
adverted  to  the  personal  aspects  of  the  Senator's  speech,  and 
especially  to  his  statement  that  the  Democrats  had  changed 
position,  while  he  himself  had  remained  consistent.  By  way 
of  testing  the  truth  of  this  declaration,  he  turned  to  the  Whigs 
on  the  platform  and,  pointing  to  each  of  them  in  turn,  asked 
if  it  was  they  or  if  it  was  the  Senator  who  had  opposed  them 
in  the  late  contest  for  the  Presidency,  that  had  changed. 
Finally,  fixing  his  eye  upon  the  chairman,  Mr.  Gilbert,  a  ven- 
erable farmer  and  almost  an  octogenarian,  he  said,  in  a  tone 
of  mingled  compliment  and  expostulation ;  "  And  you,  sir,  have 
you  changed  ?"  By  this  direct  inquiry  the  honest  old  man  was 
thrown  off  his  guard,  and  stoutly  cried  out :  "  No !"  Mr.  Til- 
den  skillfully  availed  himself  of  this  declaration  of  his  old 
neighbor  and  friend,  and  applied  it  to  the  Senator  in  a  strain 
of  masterly  sarcasm  and  irony.  The  effect  was  electric;  it 
thrilled  the  assembly  and  completely  destroyed  the  objects  of 
the  meeting. 

The  spectacle  of  a  young  college  student  so  easily  vanquisli- 
ing  in  an  intellectual  contest,  a  United  States  Senator  had  not 


SAMUEL   J.   TILDEN.  433 

then  been  witnessed.  How  often  it  might  now  be  done  is  not 
so  certain. 

In  these  times,  when  the  whole  business  of  the  country  is 
utterly  prostrated  we  can  realize  what  an  excitement  attended 
the  financial  debate  of  1837,  and  after ;  all  who  read  this  speech 
must  be  convinced  that  even  if  Webster  and  Nicholas  Biddle 
were  the  champions  of  a  system  under  which  the  revenues  of 
the  nation  were  made  the  basis  of  commercial  discounts  there 
was  another  very  strong  side  to  the  case  and  that  young  Tilden 
ably  presented  it. 

Mr.  Tilden,  who  had  watched  this  financial  revolution  of  183T 
from  the  beginning,  and  knew  its  merits  as  thoroughly,  per- 
haps, as  any  man  of  his  time,  undertook  a  defense  of  the  Presi- 
dent's scheme  and  to  overthrow  the  sophistries  of  his  enemies 
in  a  speech  which  he  delivered  in  New  Lebanon -on  the  third 
day  of  October,  1840.  It  is  marvelous,  that  in  so  short  a  time 
our  people  should  have  forgotten,  as  to  a  very  considerable  ex- 
tent they  appear  to  have  done,  the  lessons  taught  in  this  speech, 
and  those  still  better  taught  by  the  war  then  waged  by  the 
Democratic  party  with  the  policy  of  inflation,  irredeemable  cur- 
rency and  irresponsible  credits.  At  the  time  this  speech  was 
delivered  the  Whigs  were  meditating  the  re-establishment  of 
the  United  States  Bank  if  they  could  succeed  in  dividing  the 
Democrats  on  the  Sub-Treasury  scheme.  This  effort  provoked 
Mr.  Tilden  to  review  the  history  of  the  bank  and  expose  its  ill- 
founded  claims  to  be  regarded  in  any  sense  as  what  it  claimed 
to  be, "  a  regulator  of  the  currency."  What  he  says  upon  that 
subject  possesses  to  the  reader  of  to-day  not  only  considerable 
historical  interest,  but  is  pregnant  with  lessons  which  will  never 
be  out  of  season. 

Upon  his  admission  to  the  bar  Mr.  Tilden  opened  an  office 
in  Pine  street,  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

In  1844,  in  anticipation  and  preparation  for  the  election 
which  resulted  in  making  James  K.  Polk  President,  and  Silas 
Wright  Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York,  Mr.  Tilden,  in 
19 


434  SAMUEL   J.    TILDEX. 

connection  with  John  L.  O'Siillivan,  founded  the  newspaper 
called  the  Daily  News. 

In  the  fall  of  1845  ho  was  sent  to  tlie  Assembly  from  the 
city  of  New  York,  and  while  a  member  of  Uiat  body  was  elected 
to  the  convention  for  the  remodelHng  of  the  constitution  of  the 
State,  which  was  to  commence  its  sessions  a  few  weeks  after 
the  Legislature  adjourned.  In  both  of  these  bodies  Mr.  Tilden 
w^as  a  conspicuous  authority,  and  left  a  permanent  impression 
upon  the  legislation  of  the  year,  and  especially  upon  all  the 
new  constitutional  provisions  affecting  the  finances  of  the  State 
and  the  management  of  its  system  of  canals. 

The  defeat  of  Mr.  Wright  in  the  fall  of  1846,  and  the  cool- 
ness whicli  had  grown  up  between  the  friends  of  President 
Polk  and  the  friends  of  the  late  President  Van  Buren,  resulted 
fortunately  for  Mr.  Tilden,  if  not  for  the  country,  in  withdraw- 
ing his  attention  from  politics  and  concentrating  it  upon  his 
profession.  He  inherited  no  fortune,  Imt  depended  upon  his 
own  exertions  for  a  livelihood.  Thus  far  his  labor  for  the 
State,  or  in  liis  profession,  had  not  been  lucrative,  and,  despite 
his  strong  tastes  and  pre-eminent  qualifications  for  political  life, 
he  was  able  to  discern  at  that  early  period  the  importance  in 
this  country,  at  least,  of  a  pecuniary  independence  for  the  suc- 
cessful prosecution  of  a  political  career.  With  an  assiduity 
and  a  concentration  of  enei'gy  wliich  have  characterized  all 
the  transactions  of  his  life,  Mr.  Tilden  now  gave  himself  up  to 
his  profession.  Tt  was  not  many  years  before  he  became  as 
well  known  at  the  bar  as  he  had  before  been  known  as  a  poli- 
tician. His  business  developed  rapidly,  and  though  he  contin- 
ued to  take  more  or  less  interest  in  political  matters,  they  were 
not  allowed  after  1857  to  interfere  with  his  professional  duties. 

At  the  New  York  municipal  election  held  in  November,  1855, 
a  desperate  attempt  was  made  to  defeat  Azariah  C.  Flagg,  one 
of  tlie  candidates  for  City  Comptroller.  Mr.  Flagg  was  of  the 
same  school  of  politics  as  Mr.  Tilden,  and  was  renowned 
throughout  the  State,  as  well  as  in  the  city,  for  his  fidelity  to 
public  trusts.     The  seekers  after  profitable  jobs  from  the  pub- 


SAMUEL   S.   TILDEN.  435 

lie  had  nominated  as  his  opponent  a  popular  mechanic  of  gentle 
manners  by  the  name  of  Giles,  whom  they  hoped  to  control  by 
the  usual  persuasives  in  case  of  his  election.  He  ran  upon 
what  was  then  known  as  the  "  Know-Nothing  "  or  "  Native 
American  "  ticket.  The  returns  gave  Mr.  Magg  the  office  by 
a  small  plurality  of  1 17—20,313  against  20,131  for  Giles.  His 
opponent  was  to  prosecute  a  quo  warranto^  and  Mr.  Flagg's  title 
to  the  office  was  tested  at  a  Supreme  Court  held  before  Judge 
Emott  and  a  special  jury. 

The  claimants  seemed  to  have  monopolized  all  the  proof  at- 
tainable, and  to  have  left  little  or  nothing  for  the  defense.  Add 
to  this  the  original  canvass  had  been  made,  as  usual,  upon  dis- 
tinct papers  commonly  called  tallies.  The  split  tally  comprised 
three  foolscap  sheets,  which  contained  the  original  canvass  of 
the  split  votes,  and  tranfers  from  the  tally  of  the  regular  vote 
and  the  aggregate  result,  showing  the  number  of  votes  that 
each  candidate  had  received.  The  tally  of  the  regular  votes 
had  disappeared,  at  least  could  not  be  produced,  and  its  loss 
was  accounted  for.  The  papers  of  split  tallies,  transfers,  and 
summaries  that  were  produced  corresponded  with  the  oral  tes- 
timony, and  confirmed  the  relator's  theory  of  the  alleged  error 
in  the  return. 

Such  was  apparently  the  desperate  attitude  of  the  Comptrol- 
ler's case,  Avhen  Mr.  Tilden  was  called  upon  to  open  for  the 
defense.  The  defense,  if  any  could  be  made,  had  to  be  con- 
structed upon  the  basis  of  the  testimony  offered  by  the  relator, 
for  other  testimony  there  was  none.  The  return  showed,  as 
the  law  required,  the  entire  number  of  votes  given  in  the  dis- 
trict, and  the  rcgi^lar  varieties  of  what  are  called  regular  votes 
appeared  from  the  prosecutor's  own  oral  evidence.  On  this 
slight  basis  of  actual  testimony  Mr.  Tilden  constructed  an  im- 
pregnable defense.  In  his  opening,  and  after  reviewing  the 
weak  points  in  the  testimony  of  the  relator  which  he  was  en- 
abled to  discover  by  the  light  of  his  midnight  researches,  he, 
for  the  first  time,  gives  an  intimation  to  his  adversaries  of  tho 
weapon  ho  has  improvised  in  a  night  for  their  destmction ! 


4.Z6  SAMUEL  J.   TILDEN. 

Before  Mr.  Tilden  took  his  seat  the  case  was  von  and  Mr. 
Flagg's  seat  was  assured.  Within  fifteen  minutes  after  the 
case  was  submitted  to  the  jury  they  returned  with  a  verdict  in 
his  favor. 

Two  years  later  Mr.  Tilden  achieved  another,  and  in  some 
respects,  even  a  more  signal  professional  triumph,  in  the  Bur- 
dell-Cunningham  contested  will  case.  Soon  after  Mrs.  Cun- 
ningham's acquittal  on  the  trial  for  the  murder  of  Dr.  Burdell 
she  applied  to  the  Surrogate  for  letters  of  administration  and  a 
widow's  third,  on  the  ground  of  a  private  marriage  shortly 
before  Burdell's  death.  Mr.  Tilden  was  retained  by  the  heirs 
of  Dr.  Burdell  to  contest  the  fact  of  the  alleged  marriage.  In 
this,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Flagg,  his  adversaries  had  all  the 
affirmative  testimony,  the  marriage  certificate,  the  positive  oath 
of  the  clergyman  who  solemnized  the  marriage,  of  the  daughter 
Augusta,  the  only  witness  of  the  alleged  ceremony,  and  the 
subscribing  witness  to  the  marriage  certificate,  and  of  the  two 
serving  girls  employed  in  the  house.  For  the  defense  there 
was  no  affirmative  testimony  whatever.  Its  only  resource  was 
the  evolution  of  sufficient  internal  and  external  evidence  on  the 
cross-examination,  to  overthrow  the  compact  and  careful  array 
of  the  testimony  of  the  petitioners.  Though  satisfied  in  his 
own  mind  that  Burdell  had  been  murdered,  and  by  Mrs.  Cun- 
ningham, and  never  married,  Mr.  Tilden  found  himself  unable 
to  jDroduce  a  single  witness  who,  from  personal  knowledge, 
could  testify  as  to  any  important  fact  about  either  the  murder 
or  the  marriage.  He  had  besides  to  contend  with  tlie  indefat- 
igable energy  of  the  petitioners  in  producing  "willing"  wit- 
nesses ready  to  supply  any  defect  in  her  case  as  fast  as  it  was 
exposed.  Mr.  Tilden  adopted  a  course  which,  though  not  en- 
tirely original  in  the  profession,  was  probably  never  more  skil- 
fully and  effectively  put  in  practice.  Proceeding  upon  the 
principle  which  guided  him  in  his  defense  of  Mr.  Flagg,  that 
the  trutli  in  regard  to  any  particular  fact  was  in  harmony  with 
eveiy  other  fact  in  the  world,  and  that  a  falsehood  could  only 
be  even  apparently  harmonized  with  a  limited  number  of  facts, 


SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN.  437 

he  determined  to  conduct  liis  defense  by  a  species  of  moral 
triangulation. 

There  is  probably  no  case  in  which  Mr.  Tilden  has  been  em- 
ployed that  required  the  exercise  of  so  high  a  range  of  meta- 
physical powers,  or  in  which  his  penetration  of  character  ap- 
peared to  greater  advantage.  His  defense  seemed  almost  a 
creation,  and  tlie  result  produced  the  more  profound  impression 
as  it  removed  whatever  doubt  existed  in  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple as  to  Mrs.  Cunningham's  participation  in  the  murder  of 
Burdell. 

The  conviction  took  immediate  possession  of  the  public  mind 
that  had  Tilden  conducted  the  case  for  the  prosecution  when 
she  was  under  indictment  she  would  undoubtedly  have  been 
convicted.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  the  Surrogate 
did  not  confer  letters  of  administration  upon  Mrs.  Cunningham, 
or  leave  her  any  further  pretext  for  wearing  the  widow's  crape. 

His  defense  of  the  Pennsylvania  Coal  Company  in  its  suit 
with  the  Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal  Company  is  another  il- 
lustration of  his  legal  abilities.  The  Delaware  and  Hudson 
Canal  Company  had  a  contract  with  the  Pennsylvania  Coal 
Company  by  which,  among  other  things,  it  was  agreed  in  case 
of  the  enlargement  of  their  canal  the  coal  company  should  pay 
for  the  use  of  their  canal  extra  toll  equal  to  such  portion  of  one- 
half  the  reduction  in  the  expense  of  transportation  as  might 
result  from  such  enlargement.  In  due  time  the  canal  company 
put  in  their  claim  for  extra  toll.  The  coal  company  denied 
that  the  cost  of  transportation  had  been  reduced,  or  that  they 
had  derived  any  advantage  whatever  from  the  enlargement. 
After  tedious  and  futile  negotiations  suit  was  instituted  by  the 
canal  company  and  Mr.  Tilden  was  retained  for  the  defense. 
The  case  was  tried  before  Judge  Hogebdom,  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  sitting  as  referee.  Seventy  odd  days  were  consumed  in 
the  hearing,  and  testimony  offered  by  the  plaintiff  fills  several 
large  printed  volumes.  As  in  the  Flagg  case,  the  plan  of  the 
defense,  as  advised  by  Mr.  Tilden,  was  a  surprise  both  to  Court 
and  counsel. 


408  SAMUEL  J.   TILDEN. 

The  amount  claimed  was  20  cents  a  ton  on  an  annual  trans- 
portation of  five  or  six  hundred  thousand  tons  a  year  for  some 
ten  years,  besides  a  royalty  of  the  same  amount  for  an  indefi- 
nite future.  It  was  a  crisis  in  the  fortunes  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Coal  Company,  through  which  it  was  successfully  conducted. 

Among  the  more  important  cases  in  which  Mr.  Tilden  has 
been  concerned,  one  in  which  his  strictly  professional  abilities 
appeared  to  special  advantage,  was  the  case  of  the  Cumberland 
Coal  Company  against  its  directors,  heard  in  the  State  of  Mary- 
land in  the  year  1858.  Mr.  Tilden's  success  in  rescuing  cor- 
porations from  unprofitable  and  embarrassing  litigation,  in  re- 
organizing their  administration,  in  re-establishing  their  credit 
and  in  rendering  their  resources  available,  soon  gave  him  an 
amount  of  business  which  was  limited  only  by  his  physical 
ability  to  conduct  it. 

Since  the  year  1855  it  is  safe  to  say  that  more  than  half  of 
the  great  railway  corporations  north  of  the  Ohio  and  between 
the  Hudson  and  Missouri  rivers  have  been  at  some  time  his 
clients.  The  general  misfortunes  which  overtook  many  of  these 
roads  between  1855  and  1860  called  for  some  comprehensive 
plan  for  relief.  It  was  here  that  his  legal  attainments,  his  un- 
surpassed skill  as  a  financier,  his  unlimited  capacity  for  con- 
centrated labor,  his  constantly  increasing  weight  of  character 
and  personal  influence  found  full  activity,  and  resulted  in  the 
re-organization  of  the  larger  portion  of  the  great  net-work  of 
railways,  by  which  tlie  rights  of  all  parties  were  equitably  pro- 
tected, wasting  litigation  avoided,  and  a  condition  of  great  de- 
pression and  despondency  in  railway  property  replaced  by  an 
unexampled  prosperity.  His  relation  with  these  companies,  his 
thorough  comprehension  of  their  history  and  requirements, 
and  his  practical  energy  and  decision,  have  given  him  such  a 
mastery  over  all  the  questions  that  arise  in  the  organization, 
administration,  and  financial  management  of  canals,  as  well  as 
railroads,  that  his  influence  more  than  that  of  any  otlier  man 
in  the  country  seems  inseparably  associated  with  their  prosper- 
ity and  success,  not  only  in  his  own  country  but  abroad.     It  is, 


SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN.  439 

we  believe,  an  open  secret  that  his  transatlantic  celebrity 
brought  to  him  quite  recently  an  invitation  from  the  European 
creditors  of  the  New  York  and  Erie  Railway  to  undertake  a 
reconciliation  of  the  various  Interests  in  that  great  corporation, 
which  the  proprieties  and  duties  of  his  official  position  con- 
strained him  to  decline. 

Till  the  war  came  Governor  Tilden  made  every  effort  to 
avert  the  rebellion.  When  his  efforts,  combined  with  those  of 
other  prominent  patriots,  had  proved  abortive,  his  convictions 
of  duty  were  perfectly  decided  and  clear.  They  were  to 
maintain  the  integrity  of  our  territory  and  the  supremacy  of 
the  constitutional  authorities.  He  had  been  educated  in  the 
school  of  Jackson,  and  had  been  a  diligent  student  of  the  les- 
sons taught  by  the  nullification  controversy  of  1833.  He  had 
studied  carefully  and  profoundly  the  relation  of  the  Federal  and 
State  governments,  and  of  the  citizens  of  those  governments. 
He  had  thus  early  formed  perfectly  clear  and  settled  opinions, 
about  which  his  mind  never  vacillated.  They  were  the  opin- 
ions of  Jackson,  of  Van  Buren,  of  Wright,  and  of  Marcy,  with 
whom,  during  most  of  their  public  lives,  he  had  been  on  terms 
of  personal  intimacy. 

During  the  winter  of  1860-61  he  attended  a  meeting  of  the 
leading  men  of  both  parties  in  the  city  of  New  York,  to  con- 
sider what  measures  were  necessary  and  practicable  to  avert 
an  armed  collision  between  what  were  then  termed  the  free  and 
the  slave  States.  To  the  north  he  urged  reconciliation  and 
forbearance,  appreciating  as  he  did  more  clearly  than  most  of 
those  around  him  the  fearful  and  disastrous  consequences  of  a 
civil  war,  whatever  might  prove  its  ultimate  result.  To  the 
South  he  urged  a  deference  to  the  will  of  the  majority  and  a 
respect  for  the  provisions  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  within 
which  they  would  be  sure  of  adequate  protection  for  themselves 
and  for  their  property ;  but  he  warned  them  that  outside  of  the 
Constitution  they  could  expect  protection  for  neither. 

When  the  war  did  come  Mr.  Tilden  associated  himself  with 
and  was  the  private  adviser  of  Mr.  Dean  Richmond,  then  at 


440  SAMUEL  J.   TILDEN. 

the  head  of  the  Democratic  party  of  this  State,  and  who  was 
accustomed  on  all  important  questions  to  visit  Mr.  Tilden  in 
his  retirement  and  seek  his  counsel. 

At  a  meeting  held  at  the  house  of  General  Dix,  just  after 
the  first  call  of  President  ^liiicoln  for  75,000  troops,  Mr.  Tilden 
was  present  and  participated  in  the  discussions  which  took 
place.  He  then  and  there  expressed  the  opinion  that  they  were 
on  the  eve  of  a  great  war,  and  maintained  that  instead  of 
75,000  troops  Mr.  Lincoln  should  have  called  out  at  least 
500,000,  half  for  immediate  service  and  the  other  half  to  be 
put  in  camps  of  instruction  and  trained  for  impending  exigen- 
cies. Unhappily  that  generation  had  seen  so  little  of  war  and 
had  such  limited  means  of  comprehending  the  rapidity  with 
which  the  war  spirit,  once  lighted,  will  spread  among  a  people, 
that  it  was  not  competent  to  appreciate  the  wisdom  of  this  ad- 
vice, which,  if  adopted,  would  probably  have  prevented  the 
necessity  of  any  further  increase  of  military  force. 

To  Secretary  Chase  and  his  friends,  Mr.  Tilden  insisted  that 
the  war  ought  to  be  carried  on  under  a  system  of  sound  finance, 
which  he  did  not  doubt  the  people  would  cheerfully  sustain  if 
the  Government  would  have  the  courage  to  propose  it.  At  a 
later  period  of  the  war  he  was  invited  by  the  Government  at 
Washington  to  give  his  advice  as  to  the  best  methods  for  its 
further  conduct.     He  said  to  the  Secretary  of  War; 

"  You  have  no  right  to  expect  a  great  military  genius  to  come 
to  your  assistance.  They  only  appear  once  in  two  or  three 
centuries.  You  will  probably  have  to  depend  upon  the  average 
military  talent  of  the  country.  Under  such  circumstances  your 
only  course  is  to  avail  yourself  of  your  numerical  strength  and 
your  superior  military  resources  resulting  from  your  greater 
progress  in  industrial  arts  and  your  greater  producing  capacities. 
You  must  have  reserves  and  concentrate  your  forces  on  decisive 
points,  and  overwhelm  your  adversaries  by  disproportionate 
numbers  and  reserves." 

His  advice  was  not  taken,  but  he  had  the  satisfaction,  within 
a  year  after  it  was  given,  of  hearing  the  Secretary  of  War  ac- 


SAMUEL   J.   TILDEN.  441 

knowledge  its  wisdom  and  lament  his  inability  to  secure  its 
adoption. 

With  the  peace,  came  to  Mr.  Tilden  the  most  important  polit- 
ical labor  of  his  life.  With  the  assistance  of  diaries  0' Conor, 
who  followed  the  members  of  that  band  of  conspirators  with  all 
his  usual  vigor  and  adroitness  until  it  was  not  only  broken  up, 
but  its  leading  members  scattered  to  the  four  quarters  of  tlie 
globe,  he  assailed  and  overthrew  the  combined  Republican  and 
Democratic  Ring  which  ruled  and  ruined  New  York.  This 
"  ring  "  had  its  origin  in  an  act  passed  by  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  of  New  York  in  1857,  in  connection  with  the  charter  of 
that  year,  which  provided  that  but  six  persons  should  be  voted 
for  by  each  elector  and  twelve  chosen.  In  other  words,  the 
nominees  of  the  Republican  and  Democratic  party  caucuses 
should  be  elected.  At  the  succeeding  session  of  the  Legislature 
their  term  of  office  was  extended  to  six  years.  This  gave  a 
Board  of  Supervisors,  consisting  of  six  Republicans  and  six 
Democrats,  to  change  a  majority  of  which  it  was  necessary  to 
have  control  of  the  primary  meetings  of  both  of  the  great 
national  and  State  parties  for  years  in  succession — a  series  of 
coincidences  which  rarely  happens  in  a  generation. 

This  was  doubly  a  "  ring."  It  was  a  "  ring"  between  the 
six  Republican  and  the  six  Democratic  Supervisors.  It  soon 
grew  to  be  a  "ring"  between  the  Republican  majority  in  the 
Legislature  and  the  half-and-half  Supervisors  and  a  few  Demo- 
cratic officials  of  the  city.  It  embraced  just  enough  influential 
men  in  the  organization  of  each  party  to  control  the  action  of 
both  party  organizations — men  who  in  public  life  pushed  to 
extremes  the  abstract  ideas  of  their  respective  parties,  while 
secretly  they  joined  hands  in  common  schemes  for  personal 
power  and  property.  It  gradually  transferred  its  seat  of  ope- 
rations to  Albany.  The  lucrative  city  offices — subordinate  ap- 
pointments, which  each  head  of  department  could  create  at 
pleasure,  with  salaries  in  his  discretion,  distributed  among  the 
friends  of  the  legislators ;  contracts,  money  contributed  by  city 
officials,  assessed  on  their  subordinates,  raised  by  jobs  under 


442  SAMUEL  J.   TILDEN. 

the  departments,  and  sometimes  taken  from  the  city  treasury, 
were  the  corrupting  agencies  which  shaped  and  controlled  all 
legislation.  Year  by  year  the  system  grew  worse  as  a  govern- 
mental institution — more  powerful  and  more  audacious.  The 
Executive  Department  swallowed  up  all  the  local  powers,  which 
gradually  became  mere  deputies  of  legislators  at  Albany,  on 
whom  alone  they  were  dependent.  It  became  completely  or- 
ganized on  the  1st  of  January,  1869.  But  its  power  was  enor- 
mously extended  by  an  act  passed  on  the  5th  of  April  in  the 
following  year,  giving  the  power  of  local  government  to  a  few 
individuals  of  the  "ring"  for  long  periods,  and  freed  from  all 
accountability. 

Within  a  month  after  the  passage  of  this  Tweed  charter  the 
Board  of  Special  Audit — one  of  the  fruits  of  this  Legislature 
— were  making  an  order  for  the  payment  of  over  six  millions 
of  money,  of  which  it  is  now  known  that  scarcely  10  per  cent, 
in  value  was  realized  by  the  city.  Tweed  got  24  per  cent.,  and 
his  agent,  Woodward,  7  ;  the  brother  of  Sweeny,  10  ;  Watson, 
Deputy  Collector,  7  ;  33  per  cent,  went  to  mechanics  who  fur- 
nished the  bills,  though  their  share  had  to  suffer  many  abate- 
ments ;  and  20  went  to  other  parties.  Over  '^250,000  were 
sent  to  Albany  to  be  distributed  among  the  members  of  the 
Legislature. 

The  percentages  of  theft,  comparatively  moderate  in  1869, 
WBached  6Q  per  cent,  in  1870,  and  later,  85  per  cent. 

The  Senators  who  voted  on  the  6th  of  April,  1870,  with  but 
two  dissenting  voices,  to  deprive  our  great  commercial  metrop- 
olis, with  its  million  of  people,  of  all  power  of  self-government, 
as  if  it  were  a  conquered  province,  to  confer  upon  Tweed,  Con- 
nolly, Sweeny,  and  Hall  for  a  series  of  years  the  exclusive 
power  of  appropriating  all  moneys  raised  by  taxes  or  by  loans 
and  an  indefinite  power  to  borrow — who  swayed  all  the  institu- 
tions of  local  government,  the  local  judiciary  and  the  whole 
machinery  of  elections — did  not  come  again  within  reach  of  the 
people  until  the  election  of  the  7th  of  November,  1871,  when 
their  successors  were  to  be  chosen.     All  hopes  of  rescuing  the 


SAMUEL   J.   TILDEN.  443 

city  from  the  hands  of  the  freebooters  depended  upon  recover- 
ing the  legislative  power  of  the  State,  in  securing  a  majority 
of  the  Senate  and  Assembly.  To  this  end  Mr.  Tilden  directed 
all  his  efforts.  In  a  speech  at  the  Cooper  Union  in  New  York, 
he  stated  Mr.  Tweed's  plan,  which  was  to  carry  the  Senatorial 
representation  from  that  city,  and  then  re-elect  eight,  and,  if 
possible,  twelve  of  the  Republican  Senators  from  the  rural  dis- 
tricts whom  he  had  bought  and  paid  for  the  previous  year,  and 
thus  control  all  the  legislation  that  might  be  presented  there 
which  involved  his  freebooting  dynasty. 

A  party  in  power  is  naturally  disposed  to  risk  the  continu- 
ance of  abuses  rather  than  hazard  the  extreme  remedy  of  "cut- 
ting them  out  by  the  roots."  The  executive  power  of  the  State 
and  all  its  recently  enlarged  official  patronage  were  exerted 
against  the  latter  policy.  And  since  the  contest  of  1869  the 
"  Ring"  had  studied  to  extend  its  influence  in  the  rural  dis- 
tricts, and  had  showered  legislative  favors  as  if  they  were  or- 
dinary 2)atronage.  But  fortune  favors  the  brave.  Without  an 
office  or  a  dollar's  worth  of  patronage  in  city  or  State  to  con- 
fer, Mr.  Tilden  planted  himself  on  the  traditions  of  the  elders, 
on  the  moral  sense  and  forces  of  Democracy,  and  upon  the  in- 
vincibility of  truth  and  right.  That  undaunted  faith  in  the 
harmony  of  truth  and  its  irreconcilability  with  error,  which  we 
have  found  sustaining  him  at  the  bar  and  carrying  him  from 
victory  to  victory  against  more  desperate  odds,  sustained  him 
here.  As  always  happens  to  those  who  battle  for  the  right, 
Providence  came  to  his  aid.  The  thieves  fell  out,  and  one  of 
their  number  betrayed  them.  A  clerk  in  the  Comptroller's  of- 
fice copied  a  series  of  entries — afterwards  known  as  "  secret 
accounts  " — and  handed  them  to  the  press  for  publication. 
They  showed  the  dates  and  amounts  of  certain  payments  made 
by  the  Comptroller,  the  enormous  amounts  of  which,  compared 
with  the  times  and  purposes  of  the  payments  and  the  recurrence 
of  the  same  names,  awakened  suspicions  that  they  were  the 
memorials  of  the  grossest  frauds.  Mr.  Tilden  soon  became 
satisfied  of  this,  from  the  futility  of  the  answers  received  from 


444  SAMUEL   J.   TILDEN. 

the  city  officers  when  questioned  about  them  and  from  other 
sources,  and  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  city  had  been  tlie 
victim  of  frauds  far  transcending  anything  ever  suspected.  He 
immediately  formed  his  plan,  for  the  execution  of  which — as 
it  involved  the  control  of  the  approaching  State  Convention — 
the  co-operation  of  several  leading  Democrats  was  first  secured. 
He  accepted  an  arrangement  by  which  he  was  to  be  sent  to  the 
convention  from  his  native  district,  Columbia  County,  which 
had  always  during  the  "Ring"  ascendency  afforded  him  that 
opportunity  of  being  heard. 

Early  in  September  he  issued  a  letter  to  some  seventy-six 
thousand  Democrats,  reviewing  the  situation  and  calling  upon 
them  "  to  take  a  knife  and  cut  the  cancer  out  by  the  roots." 
But  before  the  meeting  of  the  convention  an  event  happened 
which  could  not  have  been  foreseen,  but  which  was  pregnant 
with  the  most  important  consequences. 

To  the  eternal  honor  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  city 
and  State,  on  the  issue  thus  made  up  by  Mr.  Tilden  they  gave 
gave  him  their  cordial  and  irresistible  support.  The  result  was 
overwhelming,  and  not  only  changed  the  city  representation  in 
the  legislative  bodies  of  the  State,  but,  in  its  moral  effect, 
crushed  the  "  Ring." 

Mr.  Tilden  was  one  of  the  delegates  chosen  to  represent  the 
city  in  the  next  Legislature.  In  deference  to  the  views  of  his 
principal  coadjutors,  Mr.  Tilden  devoted  the  six  weeks'  inter- 
val between  his  election  and  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature  to 
the  prosecution  of  its  investigation  in  the  city  departments  and 
in  preparing  the  vast  mass  of  accurate  information  which  was 
the  basis  of  nearly  all  the  judicial  proofs  that  have  since  been 
employed  successfully  in  bringing  the  members  of  the  "Ring" 
to  justice  or  driving  them  into  exile. 

Mr,  Tilden  gave  his  chief  attention  during  the  session  of  the 
Legislature  to  the  promotion  of  those  objects  for  which  he  con- 
sented to  go  there,  the  reform  of  the  judiciary  and  the  impeach- 
ment of  the  creatures  who  had  acquired  the  control  of  it  under 
the  Tweed  dynasty. 

Mr.  Tilden  had  thus  by  his  bold  acts  made  himself  promi- 


SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN.  445 

nent  in  the  work  of  reform,  and  recognized  as  the  man  to  lead 
it  in  the  State.  Prominent  friends  of  reform  urged  him  to  ac- 
cept the  nomination  for  Governor.  They  said  he  could  be 
nominated  without  difficulty  and  elected  triumphantly,  and  in 
his  triumph  the  great  cause  of  administrative  reform  would 
receive  an  impulse  which  would  propagate  it  not  only  over  the 
whole  State,  but  over  the  Union. 

Mr.  Tilden  ultimately  consented  to  take  the  nomination  for 
Governor,  his  objections  to  which  were  overcome  by  a  single 
consideration.  It  was  the  only  way  in  which  he  could  satis- 
factorily demonstrate  that  a  course  of  fearless  and  persistent 
resistance  to  wrong  will  be  vindicated  and  sustained  by  the 
masses  of  the  people ;  that  honesty  and  courage  are  as  ser- 
viceable qualities  and  as  well  rewarded  in  politics  as  in  any 
other  profession  or  pursuit  in  life.  He  was  unwilling  to  leave 
it  in  the  power  of  the  enemies  of  reform  to  say  that  he  dared 
not  submit  his  conduct  as  a  reformer  to  the  judgment  of  the 
people  ;  to  say  that  his  course  had  ruined  his  influence  ;  that 
his  name  should  be  a  warning  to  the  rising  politicians  of  the 
country  against  following  his  example.  He  felt  that,  whatever 
might  be  the  result  of  his  administration,  the  moral  effect  of 
his  election  would  be  advantageous,  not  only  in  his  own  State, 
but  throughout  the  country.  But  for  these  considerations,  Mr. 
Tilden  would  have  allowed  himself  to  be  made  the  candidate 
of  the  Democratic  party  for  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
a  position  more  congenial  to  his  tastes,  and  for  which  his  per- 
sonal preferences  were  well-known. 

He  was  nominated  and  elected,  and  whatever  lessons  or 
eloquence  could  be  expressed  in  big  majorities  were  not  want- 
ing to  lend  their  eclat  to  his  triumph.  Mr.  Tilden's  plurality 
over  John  A.  Dix,  tlie  Republican  candidate,  was  53,315. 
Mr.  Dix  had  been  elected  two  years  previously  by  a  plurality 
of  53,451. 

The  first  message  of  Governor  Tilden  foreshadowed  with 
distinctness  the  controlling  features  of  his  administration. 

First — Reform  in  the  Administration. 

Second — The   restoration   of   tlie   financial    principles   and 


446  SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN. 

policy  which  triumphed  in  the  election  of  Jackson  and  Van 
Buren,  and  which  left  the  country  without  a  dollar  of  indebt- 
edness in  the  world  and  a  credit  abroad  with  which  no  other 
nation  could  then  compete. 

In  furtherance  of  liis  policy  of  administrative  reform,  he 
recommended  a  revision  of  the  laws  intended  to  provide  crim- 
inal punishment  and  civil  remedies  for  frauds  by  public  officers 
and  by  persons  acting  in  complicity  with  them.  These  rec- 
ommendations, during  the  same  session  carefully  wrought  into 
the  legislation  of  the  State,  bore  especially  upon  those  forms 
of  administrative  abuse  which  the  exposure  and  arrest  of 
William  M.  Tweed  had  recently  revealed,  and  also  upon 
another  and  kindred  class  of  abuses  in  the  management  of  our 
canals,  with  which  the  Governor  was  already  acquainted,  but 
of  which  the  public  as  yet  had  only  an  imperfect  realization. 

But  the  feature  of  the  message  which  produced,  perhaps, 
the  most  profound  impression,  not  only  upon  his  own  imme- 
diate constituents,  but  upon  the  whole  nation,  was  that  which 
related  to  the  financial  policy  of  the  Federal  Government.  A 
generation  had  grown  up  who  had  never  seen  or  used  any  other 
money  than  a  printed  promise  of  the  Government,  and  it  had 
become  a  widespread  conviction  among  the  aspiring  politicians 
of  both  the  great  parties  that  the  current  public  opinion  in 
favor  of  an  inflated  and  irredeemable  currency  would  over- 
whelm and  destroy  any  public  man  who  would  attempt  to  stem 
it.  No  convention  of  either  party  in  any  State  of  the  Union 
had  ventured  the  experiment ;  the  active  leaders  of  both  had 
either  avoided  or  yielded  to  the  current.  Mr.  Tilden  deemed 
it  his  duty  to  lose  no  time  in  advocating  the  only  financial 
policy  which  ever  had  insured  or  can  insure  a  substantial  and 
enduring  national  prosperity. 

On  the  19th  of  March,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  secured  from 
the  Legislature  such  additional  remedies  for  official  delin- 
quencies as  were  requisite  for  his  purpose,  the  Governor  in  a 
special  message  invited  the  attention  of  the  Legislature  to  the 
mismanagement  of  the  canals. 

He  pointed  out,  in  this  communication,  with  considerable 


SAMUEL   J.    TILDEN.  447 

detail,  the  fraudulent  processes  by  which,  for  an  indefinite 
number  of  years,  the  State  had  been  plundered,  its  agents 
debauched,  its  politics  demoralized,  and  its  credit  imperilled. 
The  fullness,  boldness,,  and  directness  of  his  statements  pro- 
duced a  profound  impression,  not  only  throughout  the  State, 
but  throughout  the  country. 

The  Legislature,  though  containing  in  both  branches  many 
of  the  most  notorious  canal  jobbers,  and  constituted  largely  in 
that  interest,  was  obliged  to  yield  to  the  irresistible  public 
sentiment  which  the  Governor's  policy  and  message  had 
awakened,  and  granted  him  the  authority  to  name  such  a 
commission.  The  results  of  the  investigations,  communicated 
to  him  from  time  to  time  during  the  summer  of  1875  and  to 
the  succeeding  Legislature  of  1876,  arrested  completely  the 
system  of  fraudulent  expenditure  on  the  canals  which  he  had 
denounced  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion. 

Through  the  adoption  of  various  other  financial  measures 
upon  his  recommendation,  and  by  the  discreet  but  vigorous 
exercise  of  the  veto  power,  the  Governor  was  fortunate  enough 
to  secure  a  reduction  of  the  State  tax — the  first  year  of  his 
administration,  about  17  per  cent. — and  to  inaugurate  a  finan- 
cial policy  by  which  the  State  tax,  which  was  7i  mills  on  the 
dollar  of  the  assessed  valuation,  when  he  came  into  office,  will 
be  reduced  to  4  mills  at  least  at  the  expiration  of  his  term  of 
two  years,  and  at  the  expiration  of  the  next  succeeding  year 
to  not  exceeding  3  mills. 

Mr.  Tilden  is  now  in  the  sixty-third  year  of  his  age.  He  is 
five  feet  ten  inches  in  height,  and  he  has  what  physiologists 
call  the  purely  nervous  temperament,  with  its  usual  accompa- 
niment of  spare  figure,  blue  eyes,  and  fair  complexion.  His 
hair,  originally  chestnut,  is  now  partially  silvered  with  age. 

For  some  reason  best  known  to  himself  (and  the  gossips), 
Mr.  Tilden  is  a  bachelor,  and  should  the  suff*rages  of  the  peo- 
ple send  him  to  the  White  House,  we  may  perhaps  compromise 
with  the  female  suffragists  who  presented  their  case  so  persist- 
ently to  the  convention,  by  allowing  them  to  elect  a  matron  of 
the  White  TTouse. 


CHAPTEE  XXYIIL 


THOMAS   A.    HEITORICKS, 

Nominated  as  the  candidate  for  Yice-President  of  the  United 
States,  was  born  in  Muskingum  county,  Ohio,  September  7th, 
1819,  and  reaped  the  advantages  of  the  common  schools  of 
his  boyhood  days,  completing  his  education  in  South  Hanover 
College.  He  studied  law  at  Chambersburgh,  Pa.,  in  1843,  and 
shortly  afterwards  settled  in  Indiana  and  practiced  his  profes- 
sion in  the  courts  of  that  state.  His  reputation  for  ability 
and  fairness  in  dealing  with  his  clients  made  him  very  popular, 
and  attracted  the  attention  of  the  people  of  his  state,  and  in 
1848  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  legislature  by  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  Of  that  body  he  at  once  became  a  leader.  He 
declined  a  re-election.  In  1850  he  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  constitutional  convention,  and  distinguished  himself  by 
imparting  in  committees  and  debate  in  convention  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  theory  of  government.  In  1851,  Mr.  Hen- 
dricks was  elected  by  the  Democratic  party  a  member  of  the 
United  States  House  of  Representatives,  and  served  in  that 
capacity  until  1855,  when  President  Pierce  appointed  him  Com- 
missioner  of  the  General  Land  Office.  He  continued  in  that 
position,  by  re-appointment  by  President  Buchanan,  through 
most  of  the  term  of  that  President. 

In  1863,  the  legislature  of  Indiana,  having  a  Democratic 
majority,  elected  Mr.  Hendricks  to  the  United  States  Senate, 
and  he  took  his  seat  at  the  special  session  which  was  convened 


\  THOMAS   A.    HENDRICKS.  440 

on  the  7tli  of  December  of  that  year.  He  entered  upon  his 
duties  when  a  majority  of  the  Senate  was  supporting  the  Ad- 
ministration, which  Mr.  Hendricks  had  opposed.  He,  never- 
theless, viewed  the  war  waged  against  the  government  by  the 
Confederate  forces  as  against  the  life  of  the  nation,  and  disre- 
garding it  as  a  party  matter,  voted  with  the  Administration 
party  for  army  supplies.  From  these  facts  Senator  Hendricks 
took  his  place  among  the  progressive  statesmen  of  those  times, 
who  were  familiarly  known  as  "  War  Democrats."  Mr.  Lin- 
coln always  counted  upon  Senator  Hendricks  as  one  of  tlie 
men  in  the  Democratic  party  upon  whom  he  could  confidently 
rely  in  the  darkest  hour  of  the  nation's  peril. 

In  the  Senate  Mr.  Hendricks  was  never  demonstrative.  He 
was  always  a  hard  worker  and  valuable  man  in  committees. 
He  brought  to  its  business  a  considerate  judgment,  large  expe- 
rience, and  great  patience.  In  debate  his  speeches  were  ever 
marked  by  candor,  coolness,  and  dignity,  carrying  conviction. 
His  whole  public  record  in  the  senate,  the  legislature,  and  as 
a  land  commissioner,  stands  unchallenged  in  point  of  capacity 
and  honesty. 

In  1868  he  was  one  of  the  prominent  candidates  named  for 
the  presidency,  but  gave  way  for  the  sake  of  harmony. 

A  Democratic  State  Convention  held  at  Indianapolis,  on  the 
12th  of  July,  1872,  nominated  Mr.  Hendricks  as  a  candidate 
for  Governor.  He  accepted  in  a  speech  in  which  he  took  occa- 
sion to  give  his  hearty  endorsement  to  the  Cincinnati  platform 
and  nominees,  saying  "  Henceforth  offices  shall  be  filled  and 
laws  administered,  not  for  individual  profit  or  personal  aggran- 
dizement but  for  the  common  weal.'*  His  term  of  office  as 
Governor  expires  January  1,  1877. 

w  Such  is  the  public  record  of  Gov.  Hendricks  as  it  is  impar- 
tially recorded.  Like  his  associate  Gov.  Tilden,  he  will  suffer 
in  the  coming  campaign  many  aspersions,  especially  as  to  his 
views  during  the  war  and  the  currency  question.  During  the 
war,  his  desire  that  the  difficulties  might  be  settled  without 
recourse  to  arms,  caused  him  to  delay  too  long  to  suit  the 


450  THOMAS   A.    HENDRICKS. 

fieiy  ardor  of  the  aroused  North,  but  the  cool,  unimpassioned 
historian  will  accord  to  Gov.  Hendricks  probably  a  juster 
name,  as  one  who  had  at  heart  the  welfare  of  his  country, 
though  differing  from  the  views  then  controlling  the  Adminis- 
tration. 

His  views  on  the  currency  question  represent  those  of  the 
western  wing  of  his  party,  and  while  many  may  not  coincide 
with  them,  these  many  must  remember  that  he  is  by  no  means 
alone  in  cherishing  them. 

Gov.  Hendricks  is  well  known  and  held  in  high  esteem  by 
his  fellow  citizens  of  Indiana,  and  if  the  wheel  of  fortune 
should  throw  him  into  power,  Indiana  would  vouch  for  him  to 
the  country. 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 


VARIOUS   POLITICAL   STATISTICS. 
ELECTORAL  VOTE  FROM  1824  TO  1872. 


1824 

Andrew  Jackson,  99 

John  Q,.  Adams..,. 84 

W.H.Crawford.41 

Henry  Clay 57 

1828 

Andrew  Jackson. 178 

John  t .  Adams.... 83 

Henry  Clay 49 

Wm.  H.  Harrison.. 73 

1832 

Andrew  Jackson. 219 

JohnPloyd 11 

Hugh  L.White.  26 

William  Wirt 7 

18:36 

Mart.  Van  Buren.170 

Daniel  Webster..  14 

1840 

Wm.H.Harrison.2;J4 

Martin  Van  Buren.. 60 

1844 

James  K.Polk... no 

Henry  Clay 105 

Will.  P.  Mangum.ll 

1848 

Zachary  Taylor..  163 
Franklin  Pierce. 254 

Lewis  Cass 127 

1852 

Winfield  Scott 42 

1856 

James  Buchanan. 174 

John  C.Fremont.. 114 

Millard  Fillmore.8 

1S()0 

Abra'm  Lincoln..  180 

J.  C.  Breckinridf;:e..72 

John  Bell 39 

Step.A.  Douglass.ia 

1864 

Abra'm  Lincoln. !213 

Geo.  B.  McClellan..21 

miH 

Ulysses  S.  Grant.214 

Horatio  Seymour.  SO 

1872 

Ulysses  S.  Grant.300 

Thos.  A.  Hendricks  42 

B.  Gratz  Brown.l8 

Scattering 6 

POPULAR  VOTE  FOR  PRESIDENT  FROM  1854  TO  1872. 


Alabama 

Arkansas 

California 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts.. 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

New  Hampshire 

New  Jersey 

New  York 

North  Carolina.. 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania.. .. 
Rhode  Island... 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Vermont 

Virginia.. ....... 

Wisconsin 

TotaL 


1852. 


Scott, 
Whiff. 


15038 

7404 

35407 

30357 

6293 

2875 

16600 

649.'}4 

80001 

1.5856 

570(« 

17255 

32513 

35066 


17548 
29984 
16147 
38556 

234882 
89058 

152526 


179174 
7(i26 
58898 
4995 
22173 
5a572 
22240 


Pierce,   Hale, 
Dem.      F.  Soil. 


26881 
12173 
40()26 
a3249 
6318 
4318 
.347('5 
80597 
95340 
177()3 
53806 
18()47 
41609 
40020 
44569 
41842 

26876 
38.3.53 
29997 
44305 

2620&3 
39714 

169220 

i98.5f;8 
87^5 
57018 
135.52 
13044 
738-8 
&3058 


1601474 


100 

31(50 

62 


9966 
6929 
1604 


54 
28023 
7237 


6695 

350 

25329 

31682 

'8525 


8621 
'88i4 


1856. 


Frem. 
Hep. 


20691 

42715 

308 


96189 

94375 

43954 

314 

67379 

281 

108100 

71762 


38345 
2a3.38 
276007 


187497 


147510 
11467 


89561 
291 


1341264 


Buch'n, 
l)em. 


46739 

21910 

5:3365 

34095 

8004 

63;58 

5<)578 

105348 

118670 

36170 

74642 

22164 


39115 
39240 


35446 

58164 
32789 
46943 

195878 
48246 

170874 

230710 
6()80 
736:38 
31169 
105(i9 
89706 
52&13 


1&38169 


Film., 
Amer. 


10787 
36165 
2615 
6175 
4a33 
42228 
87444 


9180 
67416 
20709 

3325 
474(50 
19(526 

1660 

24i95 

48524 
422 
24115 
124(504 
36&S6 
28126 


82175 

1675 

66178 

15639 

545 
60310 

579 


ffr4534 


452 


VARIOUS   POLITICAL   STATISTICS. 


POPULAR  VOTE  FOR  PRESIDENT  FROM  1S54  TO  1872— Continued. 


1860. 

1864. 

STATES. 

Linc"ln, 
Hep. 

Doug., 
Dtm. 

Breck., 
Deni. 

Bell, 
Union. 

McClel. 
Dem. 

Linc'ln, 
Hep. 

Dem. 
maj. 

Hep. 
maj. 

Alabama 

Arkansas 

California 

"mhz 
mm 

3815 

i72i6i 

1390;33 
70409 

"1364 

'62811 
2294 

10653;i 
88480 
22U69 

'17028 

'37519 

58324 
862646 

mm 

5270 

268030 

12244 

'33803 
1929 

'soiio 

13651 

5227 

3a516 

15522 

1023 

367 

11590 

1(50215 

115.509 

55111 

'250.51 
7625 
26693 
5906 
34372 
65057 
11920 

31  as 

58801 

'2588i 

62801 

312510 

2701 

187232 

3951 

16765 

7707 

'iisso 

'  '6849 
16290 

'65021 

48&31 
28732 
343:54 
14641 

7:W7 

8543 
51SS9 

2404 
12295 

1048 

'53i43 

22f581 

6368 

42482 

5939 

805 

748 

40797 

31317 

"2ii2 

'48339 
11405 

3006 
178871 

'64709 

47548 

218 

74323 

""888 

27825 
20094 
6817 
3291 
3864 
5437 
42886 
3913 
5306 
1763 

*666.58 

20204 

2046 

41760 

22:i31 

405 

62 

25040 

68372 

"*44i 

'44996 

12194 

183 

12776 

'69274 

15438 

1969 

74681 

■"iei 

'kmi 

42285 

8767 

158730 
130233 

49596 
3691 

6^301 

'44211 
32739 
48745 
74604 
17375 

'3i678 

"6594 
32871 
68024 

361986 

205568 
8457 

276316 
8470 

'13321 

"16438 
65884 

'62i34 

44691 

8155 

189496 

150422 
89075 
16441 
27786 

'eisns 

^0153 
126742 
91521 
25060 

'72756 

"9826 

36400 
60723 
368735 

265154 

9888 

296.':91 

13692 

'424I9 

'23152 
83458 

'"els 

"365i5 

"■736! 

'18293 

Connecticut. 

2406 

Delaware  . 

Florida 

Georgia 

'3(;766 

Indiana 

20189 

Iowa 

39479 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

12750 
'I7592 

Marj'land  ... 

7414 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

77997 
16917 

Minnesota 

Mississippi   

Missouri 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New  Hampshire 

New  Jersey 

7685 

"4I672 

"32:52 
3529 

NevrYork 

6749 

North  Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

'59586 
1431 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode  Island 

South  Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Vermont  .. 

20075 
'29098 

Virginia 

West  Virginia 

Wisconsin .... 

'l27i4 
17574 

Total 

1866352 

1375157 

845763 

589581 

1808725 

2216067 

44428 

451770 

1S6G. 

1872. 

STATES. 

Sevm. 
Dem. 

Grant, 
Jiep. 

Dem. 
maj. 

Jiep. 
maj. 

Grcery, 
Liberal. 

Grant, 
Adm. 

Lib. 
maj. 

Adm. 
maj. 

Alabama 

72088 
19078 
54077 
479.J2 
10980 

70366 
22112 
54583 
50995 
7023 

'57134 

250303 

176548 

120399 

31048 

39566 

a3263 

70493 

30438 

13(H77 

128550 

43545 

"3:i57 
"45588 

'76324 
46962 

'sigig 

4278 

soai 

506 
3043 

"siieo 

9568 
463:59 
17058 

'28033 

'77069 
31481 
15470 

79444 
37927 
40718 
45880 
10206 
15427 
76356 
184938 
163632 
71196 
32970 
99995 
57029 
29087 
67687 
59260 
7a355 
34423 

90272 
41373 
54020 
50638 
11115 
17763 
62550 
241944 
186147 
1315G6 
67048 
88766 
71663 
61422 
66760 
132172 
13ai55 
55117 

'13806 

"II229 
'"927 

108248 

Arkansas.     . 

34.36 

California 

13302 

Connecticut 

4758 

Delaware  . 

909 

Florida  , 

2336 

Georgia 

102722 

199143 

166980 

74040 

13990 

115890 

80225 

42460 

62357 

59108 

97;r>9 

28075 

Illinois..      . 

57006 

Indiana. 

22515 

Iowa    

60370 

Kansas .      ... 

84078 

Kentucky 

Louisiana .. 

Maine 

'14634 
82335 

Maryland.. 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

74212 
60100 
20694 

VARIOUS   POLITICAL    STATISTICS. 


453 


POPULAR  VOTE  FOR  PRESIDENT  FROM  1854  TO  1872— CoNTriOTED. 


1868. 

1872. 

STATES. 

Scvm. 
JJtm. 

Grant, 
Ilep. 

Dem. 

Rep. 
maj. 

Greel'y, 
TAberH. 

Grant, 
Adm. 

Liberal 
maj. 

Adm. 

VUlj. 

Mississippi 

Missouri       

5139 

5:il8 

31224 

83J01 

4298S3 

84G01 

2=38(306 

11125 

31338-J 

6548 

45237 

26129 

'86866 
972!) 
6480 
38191 
80131 

410883 
96769 

280223 
10961 

342280 
12993 
62301 
56628 

"44167 

'29175 
108857 

"2870 

loooo 
'ioi 

'21232 
4290 
1262 
6967 

'i2i68 
41617 

*28898 

(H45 

17064 

30499 

■32122 

"8869 
24150 

47288 

151434 

7812 

62^36 

31424 

7(i456 

387281 

70094 

244321 

7730 

212041 

5329 

22703 

94391 

66500 

10927 

91654 

29151 

86477 

82175 

119196 
18329 
8413 
37168 
91<w6 

440736 
94769 

281852 
11819 

349589 
13665 
72290 
85655 
47406 
41481 
93468 
32315 

104997 

'32238 

" '8736 
19094 

34887 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

10517 
2177 

New  Hampshire 

New  Jersey 

5744 
15200 

New  York 

North  Carolina 

Ohio 

53455 
24675 
37531 

4089 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode  Island 

South  Carolina 

137548 

8336 

49587 

Texas       

Vermont 

12045 

"20366 
84T07 

30554 

Virginia 

West  Virginia 

Wisconsin 

1814 
2864 
18520 

Total 

270913 

3015071 

217184 

522612 

2a34079 

3597070 

86030 

849021 

Lincoln's  maj.  over  McClellan,  407342;  Grant's  over  Seymour,  305458 ;  Grant's  over  Gree- 
ley, 762991. 

VOTE  OP  OHIO  FOR  GOVERNOR  IN  1875  (By  Counties). 


COUNTIES. 

MAJORITIES. 

Dem. 
Allen. 

Bep. 
H'yes 

COUNTIES. 

MAJORITIES. 

Dem. 
Allen. 

Hep. 
H'yes 

Allen. 

H'yes 

Allen. 

H'yes 

Adams 

386 
769 
550 

1750 

74 

1319 

2265 

'556 

'592 
1770 

1364 
1265 

1553 
1169 

4130 

782 

*437 

482 
997 

1216 
9<56 

6046 

'i27 
234 

375 

'99i 
520 

1930 

19:33 
393 

1295 

2239 
292U 
2800 
19()2 
2410 
2851 
4588 
3677 
5200 
1453 
2<i20 
3392 
4036 
1938 
3974 
2913 
3834 

10966 
42:33 
248:3 
2708 
1312 
2(357 
1871 
7951 
1312 
2388 
736 
2208 
2431 

23621 

1853 
2151 
2250 
6092 
3192 
1101 
4514 
2358 
2935 
1890 
3102 
4389 
3480 
3154 
4940 
2:321 
2064 

17012 
2929 
1218 
2835 
2891 
2630 
2246 
6842 
2.303 
2908 
2665 
4141 
2824 

21916 

Hancock 

Hardin 

274 
81 

"682 

55 

688 

1779 

'297 
1525 

'i59 

772 

1560 

2ii3 
812 

330 

'719 

'285 

iis6 

287 
895 

1558 
637 

*794 

2770 

1384 

85 

'899 
590 

"767 

'266 
130 

"67 

28:33 
2608 
20:39 
2005 
:3215 
2082 
2838 
2()87 
2207 
2826 
3182 
1120 
3()!« 
5142 
2102 
2097 
4481 
2U28 
3947 
2306 
1960 
2843 
2.'500 
3239 
3129 
8014 
2(X)4 
2006 
5218 
2037 
1781 

2559 

Allen 

2527 

Harrison 

Henry  

Highland 

Hocking 

Holmes 

2324 

Ashtabula 

Athens 

Auglaize  • 

1323 
3160 
1394 

Belmont 

1059 

Brown 

Huron 

Jackson 

:3873 

13iitler 

2494 

Carroll 

Champaign 

Clarke  

Jeffei-son 

Knox 

3721 

2885 

Lake 

2<i78 

Lawrence 

Licking 

Logan 

Lorain 

Lucas 

Madison 

Mahoning 

Marion 

3736 

Clinton 

Columbiana 

Coshocton 

Crawford 

Cuyahoga 

3617 
2896 
4767 
5865 
2113 
;3788 

Defiance 

1534 

Delaware 

Erie .. 

Fairfield 

Medina 

Meigs 

2&59 
3i;33 
1000 

Fayette 

Miami    .  . 

4006 

Franklin 

Monroe. 

1016 

Montgomery 

Morgan 

7202 

Gallia 

Geauga 

2204 
21:36 

Greene 

Guernsey 

Hamilton 

Muskingum 

Noble..... 

Ottawa    

4888 
2104 
1062 

454  VARIOUS   POLITICAL   STATISTICS. 

VOTE  OP  OHIO  FOR  GOVERNOR  IN  1875-Continued. 


COUNTIES. 

MAJORITIES. 

Dem. 
Allen. 

Fep. 
H'yeP 

COUNTIES. 

MAJORITIES. 

Dem. 
Allen. 

Ben. 
H'yes 

Allen. 

H'yes 

Allen. 

H'yes 

*94.5 

747 
610 

1442 
765 
226 

744 

'694 
944 
255 

14 

■5I3 
222 

"259 

iioo 

1130 
2798 
3144 
1940 
2S59 
2:]89 
2746 
4050 
4216 
3o53 
3020 
4015 
2701 
6:J40 
3523 

1144 
1853 
2397 
1330 
3402 
2011 
1304 
3285 
3990 
2(i()9 
3279 
3:321 
1757 

6::85 

402:3 

Trumbull 

Tuscarawas 

Union 

Vanwert 

Vinton 

Warren 

Washington 

Wavne 

'789 

'ihh 

409 

'"86 
454 

'670 

2352 
"644 

1175 

'137 
723 

3301 
4048 
1952 
2233 
1906 
2513 
4230 
4301 
2262 
2808 
2305 

5653 

IVrrv 

3259 

Pickaway 

Pike 

2596 
2108 

Portage 

Preble 

Putnam 

1497 
3688 
4144 

Richland, 

3847 

Ross*.               ..  . 

Williams 

Wood 

Wyandot 

2399 

Sandusky  

Scioto 

Seneca.     . . . 

3531 
1735 

Shelby 

Stark 

Summit 

Total 

37013 

42557 

292273 

207817 

Per  cent. . . 
Majority... 
Total  vote. 


6544     . . . , 
590,090 


49.53    50.47 

5544 

590,090 


VOTE  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE  FOR  GOVERNOR  IN  1874  BY  COUNTIES. 


COUNTIES 


Albany, 

Allegany, 

Broome, 

Cattaraugus, 

Cayuga 

Chautauqua, 
Chemung,  .. . 
Chenango,   . . 

Clinton 

Columbia,  . . . 

Cortland 

DelaAvare,  . , . 

Dutchess, 

Erie, , 

Essex,  

Franklin, . . . , 

Fulton,   

Genesee, 

Greene, , 

Hamilton,  .., 
.Herkimer,  ., 
Jeft'erson,  .. 

Kinjifs,  

Lewis, , 

Livingston, 

Madison, 

Monroe,  . 

Montgomery, 
New  York,  . 
Niagara,  ... 
Oneida, 


Dem. 
Tilden. 

Rep. 
Dix. 

COUNTIES. 

Dem. 
Tilden. 

Rep. 
DiL 

15466 

132M 
5187 
4881 
5255 
5977 
7827 
3453 
4896 
5065 
44.34 
2927 
4608 
5.354 

15146 
3395 
27S6 
3523 
3088 
S043 
^6 
4728 
6S:38 

26811 
2764 
4347 
54.50 
9701 
3773 

44908 
4025 

11488 

Onondaga, 

9380 
4449 
7878 
2567 
6440 
6083 
1706 
6257 
10703 
3021 
26:32 
3866 
4953 
2(548 
4545 
2260 
3262 
7688 
3529 

:3(;8i 

32.37 
3:340 
8:303 
2400 
4346 
4017 
91()6 
2416 
1721 

11610 

3208 

Ontario,    

45:36 

421M5 

Orange, 

7319 

4517 

3147 

5018 

7580 

5055 

Otsego 

5:330 

4226 

1478 

4242 

4961 

3094 
5780 

Rensselaer, 

Richmond, 

9881 
2150 

22()8 
4592 

Rockland, 

St.  Lawrence, 

1817 
9106 

8767 

Saratoga, 

6264 

15()86 

Schenectady, 

2263 

3i:ti 

Schoharie,   

2712 

2;)29 

2110 

2943 

Seneca, 

2569 

2672 

Steuben, 

7072 

3998 

Suffolk 

3601 

403 

Sullivan, 

2294 

4377 

Tio"-a 

3.502 

50()6 

3370 

398;}9 

Ulster, 

5884 

3219 

2334 

3753 

T\'^ashington         .... 

5410 

39:38 

Wavne, 

5103 

10094 

Westchester, 

7145 

4139 

Wyoming, 

8434 

87436 

Yates, 

23:34 

4579 

Total 

Per  cent., 

111:37 

416.391 
5:3.22 

366974 
46.78 

VARIOUS    POLITICAL    STATISTICS. 


455 


VOTE  FOR  GOVERNOR  OF  CONNECTICUT. 


Governor,  '75. 

Gov 

'74. 

Gov 

'73. 

Gov 

'72. 

Gov 

'71. 

Dem. 

Rep. 

Temp 

Dem. 

Rep. 

Dem. 

Rep. 

Dem. 

Rep. 

Dem. 

Rep, 

COUNTIES. 

!=3 

?a 

^ 

;=j 

V 

. 

i 

5 

a 

«2 

1 

W 

2 

1 

0 

1 

W 

t-s 

1 

1 

Pairfteld, 

9448 

7003 

522 

8274 

6937 

7867 

6792 

7767 

7645 

R49S 

im 

Hartford, 

11988 
5(578 

9654 
3968 

506 
168 

10714 

5078 

8367 

3as6 

9407 
4852 

90:^S 
3893 

9399 

4804 

9820 
4428 

9728 
5134 

9711 

Litchfield, 

4820 

Middlesex 

3297 

2950 

325 

2802 

2452 

2627 

2736 

2&57 

3075 

2924 

3139 

New  Haven, 

13210 

9649 

546 

10672 

9054 

12338 

7084 

10991 

10544 

11701 

10322 

New  London,  . . . 

5427 

5739 

491 

4687 

4739 

4081 

4800 

4783 

5568 

5174 

5682 

Tolland,  

2165 

2078 

185 

2009 

1828 

1947 

1945 

1893 

2188 

2001 

2293 

Windham, 

2539 

3231 

189 

2429 

2710 

1940 

2957 

2068 

3295 

2209 

3615 

Total 

53752 

44272 

2932 

46755 

39973 

45059 

39245 

44562 

46563 

47370 

47473 

Per  cent., . . . 

53.24 

43.85 

2.91 

53.91 

46.09 

53.45 

46.55 

48.90 

51.10 

49.95 

50.05 

Majority 

6548 

6782 

5814 

2001 

103 

VOTE  FOR  GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  JERSEY. 


Governor,  1874. 

Governor,  1871. 

Governor,  1868. 

COUNTIES. 

Dem. 
Bedle. 

Rep. 
Halscy. 

Dem. 
Parker. 

Rep. 
Walsh. 

Dem. 
Randolph. 

Rep. 
Blair. 

Atlantic, 

11.58 
3680 
5527 
4359 
684 
2^>65 

13967 
2343 

13346 
4829 
5452 
54.55 
6051 
4.505 
1382 
4047 
2518 
2784 
2906 
6062 
4263 

1412 
2549 
5542 
5279 
829 
3513 
i;i694 
2427 
8128 
3.386 
5198 
4464 
4179 
4571 
1610 
4a51 
2445 
2552 
1729 
4275 
2217 

1003 

2878 
4887 
3737 

24:34 
11360 
1960 
102:37 
4663 
4594 
4367 
5224 
37.33 
1112 
3:i22 
2348 
2457 
3148 
4304 
4056 

1.343 
2()48 
5648 
4330 
728 
S411 
10847 
2501 
7281 
3023 
4621 
4175 
4021 
3771 
15.36 
4141 
2.361 
2264 
mJ9 
3767 
2117 

1096 
2789 
5206 
3656 
688 
2394 

11720 
1796 

11301 
4795 
4480 
4325 
5:J03 
4074 
1020 
8431 
2220 
25.39 
3211 
8789 
4122 

16.32 

Bep'cn, 

2149 

Burlinsjton,    

5891 

Camden 

4126 

Cape  May,  

946 

Cumberland, 

Essex 

Gloucester, 

:3742 
12902 
2460 

Hudson 

7103 

Hunterdon,    

8384 

Mercer, 

43;J8 

Middlesex 

3912 
3706 

4210 

1856 

Passaic, 

4032 

Salem, 

2553 

Somerset, 

Sussex, 

2179 
2219 

Union. 

:3.373 

Warren, 

2620 

Total, 

97283 
53.65 

840.50 
46.35 

82.362 
51.88 

76.383 
48.12 

8.39.55 
51.42 

7933.3 

Per  cent., 

48.58 

Joseph  D.  Bedle's  majority,  13.2.33:  Joel  Parker's  majority  in  1871.5.979;  Theodore  F. 
Randolph'8  majority  in  1868,4,622.  Total  vote  in  1874,181,33:3;  iu  1871,158,745;  in  1868, 
163.288. 


456 


VARIOUS  POLITICAL   STATISTICS. 


PRESIDENTS  AND  VICE-PRESIDENTS  FROM  THE  FIRST  CONTINENTAL 
CONGRESS  TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME. 

PRESIDENTS. 

1.— Prior  to  the  Adoption  of  the  Constitution. 


Peyton  Randolph. 
Henry  Middle  ton. . 

John  Hancock 

Henry  Laurens 

John  Jay 

Sam'l  Huntington. 
Thomas  McKean. . 


State. 


Va. 
S.  C. 
Maps. 
S.  C. 
N.  Y. 
Conn. 
Del. 


Date  of  Ap- 

Died 

pointment. 

Sept.    5,1774 

1775 

Oct.    22,1774 

.... 

May    24, 177511793 

Nov.     1,1777:1792 

Dec.   10,1778  1829 

Sept.  28,  1779  1796 
July  10, 1781  1817 

John  Hanson 

Elias  Boudinot... 
Thomas  Mifflin., 
hich'd  Henry  Lee 
Nathan'lGorham. 
Arthur  St.  Clair. . 
Cyrus  Griffin 


State. 


Md. 

N.J. 

Penn. 

Va. 

Maes. 

Penn. 

Va. 


Date  of  Ap- 

ponitmeut. 

Nov. 

5, 1781 

Nov. 

4,  1782 

Nov. 

3,  178:3 

Nov. 

30,  1784 

June 

6,  1786 

Feb. 

2, 1787 

Jan. 

22,  1788 

Died 


17&3 
1824 
1800 
1794 
1796 
1818 
1810 


11.— Under  the  Constitution. 


HAME. 

State. 

Term  of 
Service. 

Died. 

NAME. 

State. 

Term  of 
Service. 

Died. 

Georj^e  Washington . 

Va. 

1789—1797 

1799 

John  Tyler 

Jaifies  K.Polk 

Va. 

1841-1845 

1862 

John  Adams 

Mass. 

1797—1801 

182(; 

Tenn. 

1845-1849 

1849 

Thomas  Jefferson . . . 

Va. 

1801— 18U9 

1826 

Zaihary  Taylor 

Mi  lard  Fillmore... 

La. 

1849-1850 

1&50 

James  Madison 

Va. 

1809-1817 

1837 

NY. 

1850-1853 

1874 

James  Monroe 

Va. 

1817-1825 

1831 

Frftnklin  Pierce 

N.  H. 

1853-1857 

1869 

John  Quincy  Adams. 

Mass. 

1825-1829 

1848 

Jahies  Buchanan. .. 

Penn. 

1857—1861 

18(i8 

Andrew  Jackson 

Tenn, 

1829-ia37 

1845 

Abraham  Lincoln.. 

Til. 

1861-1865 

18<)5 

Martin  Van  Buren. . . 

N.  Y. 

ia37-1841 

1862 

Andrew  Johnson. . . 

Tenn. 

1865—1869 

1875 

William  H.Harrison. 

Ohio. 

1841—1841 

1841 

Ulysses  S.  Grant... 

111. 

1869—1876 

VICE-PRESIDENTS. 


KAMB. 

State. 

Term  of 
Service. 

Died. 

NAME, 

State. 

Term  of 
Service. 

Died. 

John  Adams 

Mass. 
Va. 
N.  Y. 
N.  Y. 
Mass. 
N.  Y. 
S.  C. 
N.  Y. 
Ky. 

1789-1797 
1797—1801 
1801—1805 
1805—1812 
1813—1814 
1817—1825 
182.5— ia32 
1&3.3— 18.37 
1837—1841 

1826 
1826 
1836 
1812 
1814 
1825 
1850 
18(52 
1850 

John  Tyler 

George  M.  Dallas. . . 
Millard  Fillmore... 
William  R.King... 
J.C.Breckinridge.. 
Hannibal  Hamlin. . . 
Andrew  Johnson,. . 
Henry  Wilson 

Va, 

Penn. 

N.  Y, 

Ala, 

Ky, 

Me. 

Tenn. 

Mass. 

1841—1841 
1845-1849 
1849-1850 
1853-1853 
1857— 18<il 
1861-1865 
186.5-181)5 
1869—1875 

1862 

Thomas  Jefferson. . . 

Aaron  Burr 

George  Clinton 

Elbridge  Gerry 

Daniel  D.  Tompkins. 
John  C.  Calhoun .... 
Martin  Van  Buren.. 
Richard  M.  Johnson. 

1864 
1874 
1853 
1S75 

i875 
1875 

or  THK 

UNIVERSITY 
^GALIFOBJ^ 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN     INITIAL     FINE     OF     25     CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  50  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.00  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


KOV    12^932 


NOV  12  1936 


PECVcmc 
APR  1   1947 

2Aug'51JS? 


DSPT      tHY  4^74 


nic 


Q  y? 


JAN  2   196? 


DEC  11 1965 


RECD  LD 

JAN  29 -66 -9  AW 


3     1974  9  B^ 


i 


5«? 


./T 


LD  21-50m-8,'32 


^c,K^.             ■    ^^^-- 

\\ 

r/M 

,TS 

•( 

„    . 

\ 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CAIylFORNIA  IvIBRARY 

